Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Many of the points have been covered so I will not repeat them. I welcome the group. There has been much talk about O'Connell Street. I do not believe O'Connell Street has been the same since they cut down the nice trees, but that is just a personal view. I used to come from the west and see the nice trees. Anyway, somebody made the decision.

Online trade was mentioned. Coming from Galway, it would be remiss of me not to mention Kenny's Bookshop in Galway, which was the second bookshop in the world, after Amazon, to have an online presence. This occurred in the mid to late 1990s. Irish retailers just missed the boat in terms of online sales. Either they did not see this coming or, if they did, did not do enough about it, notwithstanding what the delegates said about it.

The discussion is very Dublin orientated. There is a big world outside Dublin. Some 50% of the Irish population live in the Leinster area, and they have different issues. As a committee, we have visited places in the west, including Castlebar, Ballinrobe and Ballinasloe, to learn about the issues those substantial towns are facing, including the issues of parking charges and out-of-town multiples. Not many in the west would be concerned about the struggle of Arnotts, Brown Thomas or Clerys in that they regard themselves as struggling because of reducing populations and emigration. This discussion is very Dublin-centric.

People make choices, including retail choices. I was watching a documentary on Sky about the big freeze in the United Kingdom in 2009 and 2010. We had it here also. During that period, there was a huge spike in online shopping, for the obvious reason that people could not get out of their homes. There is still a desire for people to go out and feel and touch the products. If people go into a shop to buy one product, they end up buying a number of products. The better the retail experience, the more likely it is that customers will return. Do the delegates believe that if people have particular tastes, there is not a lot that the Government can do to change them? Although the councils can make places look nice, after that it is a question of the retail experience the customer can have. At home one often hears people say they do not want to go into Galway because they will not get parking at a particular time of the day or on a Friday evening, for example. It is understandable that people will opt for what is convenient.