Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)

Yes, I thank the Chairman. I thank the delegation from Retail Excellence Ireland for their passionate and real presentations. I have been in retail since I was 13 years of age and in leisure and retail for the last 18 years. My husband sent our accounts to me about a month ago and it is the first time that we have lost in a long time and are wondering what will we do in January.

Similar to Deputy McCormack, I am the enterprise spokesperson in the Seanad. Last week, in the Seanad I welcomed a lot of the budget but I also had the opportunity to say to the Minister that I really felt we had missed out on the smaller retail businesses. I can name every business on Trimgate Street, Navan. They include Geoghegans boutique, Reign Boutique, Connollys Seafood shop, David's butchers, Henry Loughran's pub that does not sell food, the Paddy Fitzsimons pub that does not sell food, Sorella Boutique, and the Ribbon Rouge boutique. All these people did not get anything from the budget and I wonder what will happen to the main street.

On Ms McBride's comment that if the Government "does not believe there is a future in retail, will it give us the memo", is a scary statement. What do you want the country to look like? Another statement was we do not need an educated workforce that does not know what it is like to be in the retail sector. My husband and I opened our business in 2008 and we got through the recession. I crawled over the counter to every customer that came in because that was all I had, and there were very few coming in, to try to make them book a party and deal with us. Therefore, customer service is so important. Deputy Tony McCormack said, "the only natural resources we have in this country are our people", yet businesses are considering the installation of automated systems. I dread when I ring a shop or somewhere and I get an automated voice and much prefer to talk on a phone and book something. We do not want automated systems; we want to see people and talk to them.

Mr. De Luca mentioned construction costs. I do not think that we have talked about construction costs. Mr. De Luca said construction costs here are two to three times higher than any other country in Europe to build a Maxi Zoo. He also said it is harder to convince shareholders to invest in a Maxi Zoo in Ireland. We have heard very big statements here.

Ms McCabe said the benchmark for any town is Kildare Village. In my town they are scared of that approach because of car parking. Navan is one of those towns where a huge investment is going on due to the Navan 2030 plan. It is beautiful with granite footpaths, trees, plants and everything but they are being put in former car spaces and that is another factor that we did not discuss today. I think we need a cross-departmental approach, not just an enterprise angle. We need to look at this from the perspective of local government, infrastructure and transport because people sometimes need to park their vehicles outside a shop in order to buy a paper or magazine.

A lovely retailer rang me the other day. His name is John Joyce. I asked him was it okay to mention his name and he said it was. He had a lovely curtain shop in Navan. It is 39 years open and he told me he desperately wants to reach 40 years. He sold net curtains which were his biggest seller. I wondered who buys net curtains but lots of people buy them. He told me that he cannot continue due to the costs. He also told me that parking was another big issue. He told me that people came to him to buy rolls of net and rolls of material for tablecloths so they must park somewhere. He said they cannot park 300 m away in a carpark and walk to him because he cannot do business that way.

Ms McCabe mentioned that 17,200 jobs have been lost in the sector. What do the members of Retail Excellence Ireland say are the main reasons for that?