Ms Aoife McBride:

I am thankful for the opportunity to speak. I am here as a retailer and as somebody successfully running a business in Killarney that has been there for 40 years. I want to start with the story of my grandfather's shop, which was in business for 121 years last year. That is an amazing achievement. It is run by my aunt and uncle. My cousin went back into the business three years ago. This year, she has had to step out of the business and retrain because it is no longer viable. This means that a shop that has been operating for 121 years – my mother grew up above it, and it is where they all trained – will be out of business once my uncle retires in the next few years. That is the reality.

In Killarney, we are very lucky to be in a very vibrant town. We have actually been very busy this October, but we have been busy because of the number of other retailers that have closed. That is depressing. I do not want to be busy because other shops are closing; I want to be busy because we are in a vibrant economy where people can afford to shop in my shop. That is the point. It means a reality check whereby we must ask, regardless of all the figures in the world that I could give, what we want the country to look like, what kinds of towns we want to walk into and whether we want shops. I own the building that houses my shop and we are just about breaking even, or a little bit over that. If I were renting, I could not start the business. I could not start it now. I have inherited it.

I have worked in many different sectors. Ms McCabe and I have just found out that we are both qualified engineers. I have worked in the film industry and in events. I came back at the start of the Covid pandemic. We had 12 employees and I did not want the business to go under. I thought I would go back to London but I did not and stayed here. I am now running the business and love doing so. I am a fifth-generation draper and have massive respect for the industry and everything my mother taught me. The women who work in our shop have been there for 40 years. The first woman my mother employed still works for us. She turns around to me and asks why her wage is only a couple of euro above the minimum wage. That is so degrading for the women. It is really heartbreaking. From the perspective of someone who has worked in other industries, I say this is a joke and that I am not staying in the industry.

If the Government's decision is that there is to be no support for retail and that it does not believe there is a future in retail, will it give us the memo, because we do not need to waste our energy here? I do not need loads of money but I need a fair wage for the people I am employing.

It is the language around the Low Pay Commission, the minimum wage and so on. Women who work hard and have been working with me for 25, 35 or 40 years are being told that they are close to the minimum wage. People keep talking about it with regard to students who work at the weekend and people with part-time jobs. This is my profession and I have respect for it and for the women who work in it, but no one else seems to. I do not know what is going on. We did a simple calculation before coming here about €100 that comes into my till-----