Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

It is well known that the Minister, Deputy Martin, and I come from the same community and parish. Our family homes are no more than 100 m apart. We share the same sense of affection for the community in which we were brought up, as well as sharing a sense of the character of that area. It has a combination of charms in the sense that it is only ten minutes walk from Cork city centre but it managed to maintain a village quality.

While much of that character remains in its people and its houses, in the past 20 years the economic life of Turner's Cross has all but evaporated. In that period, which coincides with the Minister's political career, within a quarter mile radius of both of our family homes 15 corner shops have gone out of business. One could say that this is the normal cut and thrust of economic life and that the groceries order, as it stood, did nothing to defend those businesses — I will address those points presently. However, not only were these economic outlets, but they played an important social role in my local community. They were places where people went to get their pint of milk — usually just one pint — a loaf of bread, a tube of toothpaste or an evening newspaper. As they dealt on that scale, it was unlikely that the type of savings that large multiples make and pass on to consumers were possible in those shops.

They were also places where people, being creatures of habit, would visit on a regular basis as a matter of ritual, and a person's absence would be commented on. On foot of that, visits were made to people who had not been seen of late in their local corner shops. These local shops were part of a social infrastructure that we have lost, with milkmen who deliver milk and regular post in local areas.

The Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ahern, might find this amusing, but as Deputy Ned O'Keeffe, his constituency colleague has just described, the same phenomenon is happening in the rural towns he represents.

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