Paul Daly (Fianna Fail)

I highlight the issue we are being bombarded with at the moment on every media outlet, including on television and radio, the fact that we have Black Friday on Friday, and the devastating effect this is having on our local rural communities and our local rural retail outlets. Some of the statistics on online shopping are startling and actually frightening. It has been proven that 85% of Internet users do shop online and 40% of those purchases are made outside the EU. A really startling figure is that over €12 million of low level parcels are entering the EU from China every day.

Like many people here, I had my local GAA club AGM on Sunday night. We received our financial report and a list of all the sponsors and supports we had within our local community. Not one Chinese company was listed on it. It is the poor local retailers and traders, and sole traders, who are trying to survive, who are putting their hands in their pockets to support not only the GAA but every other worthy cause within the community.

As I said, we are being bombarded at the moment with advertising. There are plenty of Irish retailers, outlets and suppliers who will sell to people online. We need to support them. The Government needs to counteract the Black Friday campaigns with a shop local and support Ireland campaign at this time of the year. A lot of people will do their Christmas shopping on Friday online and purchase goods from places as far afield as China. This will continue until we put up a stand. It is affecting rural Ireland in particular, but also urban Ireland. The urban outlets and high streets are really suffering the consequences. People need to be aware that some of these outlets are now using Ireland in their advertising to give the impression they are Irish outlets, when they are far from that. The Government needs to lead a strong campaign on this issue. We need to collectively support our own.