Over-regulation strangling retail newsagents

Farcical bureaucracy, mounting stealth charges and misdirected policies are strangling retail newsagents, according to the vice president of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents in Ireland, Joe Sweeney. A recent survey by the economist Jim Power, combined with members' anecdotal evidence is painting a picture of a dramatically worsening retail environment. At a time when the government should be supporting local shopkeepers trying to retain jobs through a recession, it is instead supporting a range of state agencies and local authorities as they turn the screw on small retail businesses. Jim Power estimates that nearly 25,000 jobs have been lost in retail shops over the last year. Over-regulation is impacting on newsagents in many ways. The forthcoming rise in electricity prices being driven by the Commission for Energy Regulation; compliance with the regulatory burden imposed by state agencies now costs the sector €26.5 million per annum with most shop owners spending the equivalent of a 50 hour week each year on form filling and box-ticking; separate Department of Agriculture inspectors visiting shops to check on potato sizes and egg dating; the Office of Tobacco Control using teenage researchers to trap shopkeepers into selling cigarettes to them while ignoring the huge illicit trade in every market and town in the country; shopkeepers now need up to 21 separate licences for retailing various products from small batteries to lottery tickets; the Central Statistics Office demands weekly, monthly and quarterly surveys to be completed by small business with the threat of a €1,500 fine if not returned on time. Mr Sweeney, who runs his own shop in Donaghmede Shopping Centre, Dublin, continued: "Small, local shops provide a valuable community service.The ability of retailers to continue in business is already being severely tested by recession and the sharp drop in consumer spending. This is being enormously aggravated by enforced compliance with a wide range of disjointed government measures piled piecemeal onto the sector. Despite repeated government and EU level promises to cut-back regulatory and administrative compliance costs to small business, the problem continues to worsen. Some joined up thinking is badly needed."