Ms Tara Buckley:

I thank the Chair for the invitation. I will first introduce my colleagues. I am joined in person by Mr. Colin Fee, RGDATA president, who owns convenience shops, a bar and a restaurant in County Louth. We are joined online by RGDATA directors, Ms Rachel Twomey of Twomeys Supermarkets Limited in Deansgrange village in south Dublin; Ms Annie Timothy who runs a supermarket in Abbeytown, County Roscommon; Mr. Padraig Broderick who runs a town centre convenience store in Croom, County Limerick; and Ms Leona Pender who runs a forecourt convenience store in Kilcock, County Kildare. All my colleagues are keen to give the committee some perspective on the specific challenges they are facing at this time.

I will first tell the committee about RGDATA and the people we represent. We represent 3,500 independent family-owned food retailers in Ireland. Our members operate in every community providing employment and local services to their towns, villages and local communities in city centres and urban areas. RGDATA members make a big economic contribution nationally. More than 100,000 people are working in our stores and we generate over €4 billion annually for the national economy. RGDATA members, who have more than one third of the retail-grocery market share in Ireland, share a number of common features across their businesses. All the businesses are independently owned. The person who owns the shop is directly involved in running the business and is usually on the shop floor from morning to night. In the past 30 years, most of the businesses have become allied to a buying group and trade as symbol retailers, usually with their family name associated with the store. This has enabled them to remain viable and compete with the biggest multinational grocery retailers.

Our members are substantial employers. Retail is a labour-intensive service business and the formats operated by our members typically employ more staff proportionally than other retail model per square metre. The business is highly competitive. Our members compete against Irish and international global retailers, including some of the largest food retailers in the world, on a daily basis. Members' businesses are rooted in their local communities. Our members' stores are usually located at the heart of their local communities and they employ, source and invest in the local community. They provide diversity, value and choice to local communities. Every day our members must earn their customers' business. Nothing is taken for granted.

The past 12 months have brought a series of unprecedented challenges to the independent retail-grocery sector and our members have been impacted in ways that few expected at the start of the year. I can honestly say that this is the most challenging and stressful time that independent food shopkeepers have faced since the founding of RGDATA. Local convenience shops and supermarkets are heavy users of electricity. A modern food shop has an extensive power demand through the load required for refrigeration, lighting, air conditioning and plant. Many of our members have invested heavily in measures to increase energy efficiency and reduce their energy consumption, but high essential energy use is still part of all their businesses. Fridges cannot simply be turned off and stores cannot be left in darkness. The scale of the increases in electricity costs since February 2022 is simply staggering. My colleagues can directly address the level of increases they have faced. For instance, Annie Timothy from Roscommon can tell the committee how her normal €6,000 per month electricity bill has climbed to an eye-watering €21,000 over six months. Most of our retailers have seen their electricity bills more than treble over the past six months, all at a time when turnover has stayed static or declined due to consumers being under increased pressure.

We welcome the temporary business energy support scheme announced in the budget. It will be of some help. However, it needs to be revised to take account of increased electricity costs incurred since 1 March 2022 and not 1 September. It also needs to be reviewed in the months ahead to see if the level of support provided needs to be increased to deal with an anticipated increase in bills throughout the winter.

Left unchecked, the energy crisis has the capacity to shut down many viable but vulnerable shops. They simply cannot continue to trade in the face of such adversity. As owners of labour-intensive businesses, RGDATA members are facing a host of new employment costs. Many of these costs are a consequence of State-imposed labour costs, such as increased wages, sick pay and pension provisions. Our members are good employers and are always keen to meet their obligations and responsibilities to staff, but there is a simple conundrum arising from how these additional costs can be funded at a time of unprecedented challenges. This is causing significant stress for SME food-business owners.

The reality for many trading retail-grocery businesses is that they are operating with low margins, facing increased competition and costs and dealing with reduced consumer expenditure. This time of particular challenge will pass, but in the meantime businesses that can remain viable need Government support to help them to adapt to increased State-imposed employment costs. There is no hidden pot that retailers can dip into and the increased cost pressures are plain for all to see.

During the COVID 19 crisis, the Government demonstrated creative and meaningful ways of helping viable businesses to support and sustain employment. Similar schemes are required now and for at least the next 12 months. Our members are hardworking retailers who will compete with the largest global food retailers on a daily basis and they are good at what they do. They run local food shops to a standard and quality that meet and beat the highest European standards. Not only do they battle against the competition, but they also have to trade in what is an increasingly challenging operating environment.

All our members pay significant commercial rates and local charges to local authorities. The rates revaluation programme which is proceeding nationally is also causing major stress as shop owners in areas like Donegal are receiving massive 100% increases in their building valuations and now fear the increased rates demands they are facing from the local authority. Insurance costs continue to be a major issue for local shops and despite broad political support for measures to tackle exorbitant insurance costs, the insurance industry is still disgracefully slow in bringing in reductions in premiums. The time has come for that industry to be shamed or taxed into producing reductions.

Local convenience stores and supermarkets are also facing new State compliance schemes, which will need to be funded and serviced, including the deposit return scheme and the latte levy. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges that some of our town centre retailers are facing is the negative impact of traffic management and active travel schemes that have blossomed since Covid-19 traffic restrictions were introduced.

If car-based customers cannot access their local family-owned retailer because of parking restrictions, reduced lanes or new traffic restrictions, then they will just drive by them to the out-of-town supermarket with a free car park which can be accessed easily. It makes no difference how good your shop may be, if the local authority has skewed the traffic around your premises to make it less accessible, then customers will go elsewhere.

Our request on this is simple. Active travel and traffic management schemes should not just be seen as engineered solutions to traffic flow. They need to be properly assessed and configured to minimise adverse commercial impacts. We are all for creating sustainable communities which can be accessed by different modes of transport but local food shops should be at the heart of sustainable planning.

With the permission of the Chair I would like to ask each of my colleagues to give a short account of their businesses and the specific challenges that they are facing at present. We would of course be happy then to take any questions.