The Forgotten Recession

popebenny16

Listening to RTE Radio on Saturday there weas a glib reference to how The Recession (TM) is having more of an effect in the Midlands, just as a passing comment to Dublin.

Here in North Tipp there is mighty dissasisfaction with the way the Mid West area bodies are treating us. It seems that it is Limerick, Offaly (wonder why) and noone else, the idea being that any jobs created in Limerick will be good for us as we can all commute there. North Tipp (and indeed south as well, but they are not in Shannon Development and the Mid West Enterprise Board Area) is being totally left in the cold.

In Roscrea Taro is closing down totally, with not even a security staff being left there which will cause the local guards nightmares. Five shops have closed on Roscrea main street since the new year, and I think one has just closed in the shopping centre as well. Add to this the closure of many other shops in the town over the past few years and it is pretty depressing.

Same for Templemore, with the hiatus on the recruits into the Garda College the place is like a morgue after 6pm. Again, look at the main street and you will see many closed shops along the post office side of the street. Rumour has it that some of the bigger shops are in trouble too (not surprising).

There is a widespread use of short working weeks in almost every business that I know of in Roscrea, Templemore, Thurles and Nenagh. The workload in Thurles Social Welfare office is appalling, almost every business there has people singing on for two or three days a week.

It is the forgotten recession. Due to the agricultural history of business here maybe it is low on the government agenda. What that masks is that many farmers were part time, and supplemented their incomes with non farm work that has now dried up and the farm income cannot make ends meet. Aligned to that there is athe increased squeeze being put on farmers from processors and ultimatly the large multipules.

I would hope that anyone with experiances of how your town or village is affected by the recession will post here.

tippspur

That's fair bad ok,I think 4 shops closed in and around Clonmel center in the as couple of weeks.I remember Brian Lenihan saying in his budget speech that the worst was over and we had turned a corner,yeah right Brian.

PhatPiggins

tippspur wrote: »

That's fair bad ok,I think 4 shops closed in and around Clonmel center in the as couple of weeks.I remember Brian Lenihan saying in his budget speech that the worst was over and we had turned a corner,yeah right Brian.

Yeah I remember listening to him and going wishful thinking. In fairness though he could hardly go right thats the first round of pain over, three more and we might survive this.

I think Clonmel has so far been extremely lucky in that a lot of the big employers have remained. I'd say a few of the shop closures are due to the ridiculous rents been charged in the town centre. There was no shortage of takers for the Greyhound complex who were offering very competitve rates.