Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the witnesses for taking the time to appear before the committee, present to us and offer us a very fascinating insight into some of the ideas they have for sustaining and reviving our rural towns and villages through their commercial activity. I am a somewhat vested interest in this regard. I own a small rural business. I am a small rural retailer. I sell alcohol in a pub which is the only one in my town. In fact, I am the only retailer in the village in which I live. I am very much on the front line in facing up to some of the challenges the witnesses face.

I will pursue a few lines of questioning that might give me a greater insight into the challenges the witnesses face and then examine how we can best support them. Mr. Fitzsimons referred to the issue of commercial rates. How difficult an environment does that continue to be for retailers in our towns and villages? Galway County Council last year was considering a mechanism - I think it is in place now but I could be wrong - whereby it identified 40 vacant premises in Ballinasloe and 35 in Tuam and incentivised new businesses to come into the towns and trade from those vacant premises on the basis that in their first year of trading they would not have any rates liability, in the second year they would have a 50% liability, in the third year they would have a 75% liability; and, finally, they would have a full rates liability in the fourth year. This seems to have been very well received. It is a kind of scaffolding structure to make these businesses viable during the most difficult period of their trading, namely, the very beginning of their trading life.

The towns I know best are those close to my home: Portumna, Gort, Athenry, Loughrea and Tuam. They are all market towns with populations of roughly 4,000 to 6,000, have very large rural hinterlands and rely hugely on those rural hinterlands to survive. One or two of the more, I would argue, visionary council engineers have suggested to many retailers in these towns to consider seriously a full pedestrianisation option, à laGrafton Street or Henry Street, and create a necklace of high-quality car parking facilities on the periphery not of the town, but the town core. Some of these towns might already have such car parking facilities in place. They would require shoppers to walk no more than 200 metres or 300 metres to what one would describe as the town core. Mr. Fitzsimons spoke about beautification and making our town centres more attractive. I may be completely wrong, but it is my opinion that in the case of the shopper who wants a pleasant experience of visiting his or her local town and wants that experience in the town core, if he or she goes to Dundrum Town Centre, as mentioned by others here, he or she is in an enclosed building, there are beautiful benches and it is a pleasant place to be. People can park there, shop till they drop and walk out four or five hours later. Could an attempt be made to replicate somehow that ambiance and that environment in our town centres? I am not suggesting putting roofs over them, even though one engineer suggested that for a street in Tuam a number of years ago, but rather making them simply more pleasant places to be so that people and their children can walk freely across the streets and back again, from the butcher to the newsagent to the draper, knowing they are in a perfectly safe environment. The fear of retailers, many of whom I have spoken to about this, is the simple feeling that people will not make the 200 metres or 300 metres journey from their car to the town core and that if the cars are not driving right by their premises, it somehow disadvantages them in terms of access. I am not so sure this is the case.

Have either of the witnesses' organisations considered this as a policy? Do they agree we should pursue it? If we were to do so, is there some way the State could support such an endeavour? If one goes to towns in France, Spain or Italy on a Saturday afternoon, one will see they are in the main pedestrianised, not because they are somehow formally so, but because they seem to be self-pedestrianised. There are markets and there seems to be a vibrant community life in the town centres because in the main there are no cars there. The cars seem to park on the peripheries of these smaller towns. Have the witnesses considered this? What are their opinions on it?

The Chairman spoke very well about the issue of digital and both the challenge and the opportunity it presents for retailers. I have a 20 year old son. I cannot remember the last time he bought a stitch of clothing in any shop within 20 miles of where we live. He was looking for a pair of hurling boots at the beginning of the hurling season. He asked me if he could buy a pair of hurling boots. I told him of course he could. He bought them sitting on the sofa at home, and they arrived in our letter box the following morning from Newry. There is a shop that sells hurling boots four miles away from where we live. He had no interest whatsoever in getting into a car, driving to that shop and spending his time in the town centre. For him, it was all about the choice and the convenience of being able to buy whatever boots he wanted from the comfort of the sofa, sitting in front of the television. He shops and watches television at the same time, and that is a phenomenon with which we must somehow engage and use to our advantage. The Chairman is right in his idea.

A gentleman from a rural town came to me about six months ago with what was a very rudimentary town commercial website, that is, a kind of Shopify for towns. There would be an overall place - say, Loughrea, Athenry, Tuam or Portumna - one could go to on an app on one's phone; one could then subdivide into different categories - food, drapery, whatever it might be - and each retailer in the town could plug into the app and place its own shopfront on it. I do not think individual retailers have the time, expertise or resources at the moment to start setting up individual online businesses as McElhinneys has done. McElhinneys is a pretty rare case, and I applaud it for what it does. There are others, such as Calvey's, a little butchers in Achill, in a tiny village on the coast of Ireland. Its owner sells wonderful lamb all over the world from the back of his shop. He has developed his brand, and it is an extraordinary business and perhaps an example to others. Could we develop the idea of a kind of online town marketplace which individual retailers could plug into and begin to access customers such as my son? My son has no interest in local shops whatsoever. He is 20 years old, he will be 30 before long, and all of a sudden his activity will become the norm nationally. We must face this challenge.

Some of my colleagues spoke about the alcohol Bill. Deputy Heydon has asked the question already. How much of a negative impact do the witnesses feel the obligation on them, if it arises, to remove alcohol in their premises completely from public eyes and public display will have on their business? How much of their current turnover is reliant solely on alcohol? How much of their remaining turnover is driven by the footfall generated by people who want to buy maybe a bottle of wine on a Friday evening or a few cans of cider on a Saturday? How impactful do the witnesses reckon it will be on their business if we oblige every retailer, from the most massive multinationals down to the tiniest corner shop, to remove alcohol completely from public display? I am interested in the witnesses' views on that.