Mr. Michael Gaynor:

Dundalk Football Club has been involved in European football competitions and has served the town very well in recent years. However, the spin-offs have been poor because we do not have a stadium that allows us to hold European games which we have to play in Dublin instead. We will look at developing a stadium for this purpose. We are in a unique position, halfway between Dublin and Belfast, and a new stadium would serve us very well.

We are also very lucky to have in Dundalk a fine all-weather racetrack which has been open for a number of years and quite successful. There is a suggestion that it will have a jump facility, something we hope will come to fruition next year. It will be one of the first in the country and will result in extra meetings being added to the more than 20 currently held, generating tourist income from both sides of the Border. Whenever I have been at the racetrack I have noticed that the bookies trade in either euro or sterling, which suggests a lot of people come from Northern Ireland. Dundalk Chamber of Commerce has a number of tourism bodies is actively engaged with local soccer clubs. We hold some of our meetings in the racetrack offices and have close connections with such bodies.

Cross-Border activity in the equine sector might become problematic. There may also be an impact in the case of horses which are imported or which cross the Border for any other reason or in the case of those which cross the border into England to race at Cheltenham or other race meetings. It is worrying that there may be passport controls in the movement of animals.

We have some interaction with Teagasc, but the chamber is more involved with the general business community. From the point of view of sport, community matters, social life and tourism, we have been fortunate to have local facilities. There has been horse racing in Dundalk since the turn of the century and it is very popular. Like any town in Ireland, there is a mix of big multiples and independent traders. There are two Aldi and two Lidl stores, as well as a number of Dunnes Stores and Tesco supermarkets. We have a number of shopping centres, one of which is in the town, and retail parks. A lot of work is being done at Government level to regenerate town centres and Dundalk is no different. The centre is challenged from a retail perspective, but a number of local shops have opened recently. We are very aware of people trading and shopping online, but it is now a fact of life. Unless business and retail people do something about it by engaging actively, there will be problems. We run a number of programmes in marketing and multimedia studies to encourage local retailers to use platforms such as Facebook and Twitter as an opportunity to sell online. A number of shops now operate totally online. That is the way young people now shop and it is up to individual businesses and traders to come up with different product offerings.

That is what they need to be doing to encourage people to shop locally. I agree with the Senator that it is not only problematic for the Border regions but on a national level.