Christmas trade in Trim 'not good'

Councillor Ray Butler, who owns a footwear business in Trim, said Christmas business in Trim was similar to that in every other town in Ireland - "not good". He said for most people, food had been a priority. "Everything else is taking second place. From what I have heard around the town, food shops and convenience stores are doing OK but business is not good in shops selling clothes, footwear and electric goods," he said. He said it was unfortunate that the Government could not see that by taking away old age pension and social welfare bonues, it was dealing a heavy blow to the retail sector. "There is no doubt about it but that if the bonus had been there, it would have been spent locally and would have gone straight into the exchequer. "That would have been the first money to be spent at Christmas. I don't believe that people who receive social welfare would be going North - they'd be spending it in their own town," he added. Cllr Butler said people trying to run a business were "struggling". He said that the budget had given no incentives to people in the retail sector. "It was a matter of scaring everybody out of their wits," he said. "There are two kinds of people at the moment - those who don't have the money to spend, and those who have it but are holding onto it because they are scared of the future." Stephen Nally of Nally's SuperValu in Trim said that business in the run-up to Christmas was "fairly all right, not bad". He said it was the time of the year when most people would do a trolley shop and they had been lucky to hold onto loyal customers. He said that trading in 2009 had been "tough, same as for everybody else", and he thought 2010 would be "worse". "Hopefully, if we get 2010 over, things might start to get better," he said. Steve Moss, Trim, who runs a website tedseclecticlot.com selling teddy bears and collectables, said that Christmas trade had not been good. "Trading was pretty poor even compared to last year. All we can do is hope things will improve in 2010", he said. Ann Tobin, who runs the C&A Tobin gift shop with her husband Ciaran, says that, overall, trading was not too bad. "We have been here 25 years so we have seen both ends of the Celtic Tiger," she said, "Things might have changed this year in that people who might have spent €30 on a gift last Christmas would have spent €10 this year but, then again, things are cheaper. There are bargains to be had," she added.