Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This Bill aims to improve company rules set out in the Companies Act 2014 by enhancing corporate governance, ensuring companies follow regulations, streamlining daily operations and managing insolvency cases. It promises better management, increased transparency and stronger oversight. However, it may face challenges in its implementation and arising from additional costs for companies. Companies can be made up of all types of ingredients. A company can be a local community or voluntary organisation. Many such organisations definitely will not be creating any of the problems envisaged by the Government in putting forward this Bill. The problem is that all companies, including community and voluntary organisations, will be under the same umbrella of imposed correctiveness and added costs.

I was at a community meeting last Sunday morning at which we were told our accounts might have to be audited and it will cost €4,000. In the name of God, where is all this money to be found by voluntary organisations? They are on their knees. They are looking for help, not to be crucified even more. Unfortunately, I have noticed since the Covid period that quite a lot of voluntary organisations are disbanding. A lot of people have walked away and not come back. They got a break, perhaps after working for years, and just could not face back into the workload being put on them. I strongly advise the Minister of State to make sure there is a difference in treatment as between companies that are voluntary organisations and companies that are making huge profits. If that is not done, there will be more problems lying ahead.

Small businesses are struggling. We see that on a daily basis all over the country. Doors are closing. That is down to the increased VAT rate and other added costs. Businesses do not know what is going to happen. As well as the added costs of the increase in VAT from 9% to 13.5%, there is the cost of electricity, the cost of staff and the red tape and bureaucracy that arise when it comes to getting anything done in this country. One place of many that closed recently is a café that served the people of a beautiful small town near me. Nickie's Kitchen was loved by everybody who came through its doors. It had a wonderful owner and staff and wonderful produce. The town of Schull was proud to praise Nickie for what she did for us for so many years. She looked after people in that community so kindly. The added costs make it impossible for people to go on. There are many more businesses like Nickie's Kitchen closing their doors, mainly down to costs and the bureaucracy attached to doing business. The doors of that wonderful café in Schull have closed. It seems to be one thing after another in this country when it comes to small businesses. This was a business that should not have closed. It should have been helped, not crucified.

I was across the road earlier today to meet the people from the VAT 9 group that came up from west Cork. Those ten or 15 people are giving up their time to try to save businesses throughout the country dealing with the huge increase in the VAT rate from 9% to 13.5%. There is a lack of understanding about this. When I was coming up to Dublin earlier in the week, I met somebody who has a restaurant in a filling station in west Cork. He said it is not possible to separate the VAT. The Government seems to be down on top of businesses like that. The people who open the door of a business are the people to be taken on.

They are the people the Government should be assisting. The Government has a focus on massive companies in this country and making sure they are okay, but the people who provide six, seven, eight, ten or 12 jobs in the local community are absolutely forgotten and destroyed. This VAT 9 group, which I was delighted to meet, is in with the Minister, Deputy Chambers, now pleading with him in advance of the budget next Tuesday. It should not have to plead with him. There should be common sense. Why would the Government allow hundreds and hundreds of restaurants and cafés throughout the country to close and throw a blind eye to them? It is beyond me. At the top, this Government is completely out of touch as to what is going on. If the Minister of State wants to come down to my constituency, I will drive her past the cafés, pubs and businesses that are all closed. God damn it, I am not making up a story. They are the people telling me what is wrong out there. I am not coming in here to mislead the Minister of State in any way. I know she will say this is the companies Bill, but companies, businesses and community voluntary organisations will suffer a lot from this as well. I meet the fishermen and they are desperate for their permits at the moment. Overseas fishermen have applied for these permits but are waiting far too long.

I could go on forever about businesses that are in trouble. The Minister of State has to understand that is what I have been told on the ground.

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