Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I raise an issue that has been discussed by many Senators this morning, last week's difficult and extreme weather conditions and their impact on the retail sector. The weather conditions carried a significant cost for the industry in lost sales, employee wages and clean-up costs. It amounted to hundreds of millions of euro and retailers have been left to pick up the pieces, as was evident when listening to Ms Lorraine Higgins of Retail Excellence Ireland on radio this week. She outlined the advertising costs retailers would incur to eke out their losses from last week. I have an issue with the non-existence of cash in post offices, which exacerbated retailers' losses during the extreme weather event. It was reported that post offices in counties Dublin, Louth and Offaly and some in the midlands had been emptied of cash as social welfare recipients queued to collect payments. This posed an additional challenge to retailers who were already facing extreme weather conditions and lost opening times.Given that no similar problems surfaced at ATMs and banks, did the Government properly plan for the doubling of the fuel allowance? Did it ensure that An Post had enough cash reserves and a satisfactory plan in place? Were cash logistics de-risked to ensure that such threats to cash supply would not happen?

We are all aware that this matter had an impact on social welfare payments because many people did not receive what they were told were their entitlements. Unfortunately, the situation will continue this week and it will continue to have impact on retailers for the coming weeks. We need to debate this issue and ensure that small independent shops in towns do not suffer in this way again. I urge consumers to continue to support their local shops which are key stakeholders in their communities. Only for local shops in many areas, people would have been left high and dry.