Retail Ireland, the IBEC group that represents the Irish retail sector, has published an assessment of the jobs to be lost due to cross border shopping during November and called for remedial action in the Budget.
“Every 150 cross border shopping trips during November caused the loss of one job here,” said Retail Ireland director Torlach Denihan. “Cross border shopping during November will cause in the order of 1,700 people to lose their jobs. The impact of cross border shopping over the weekend alone will cause approximately 400 job losses. If cross border shopping continues at this rate during December similar numbers of jobs will be lost with particular devastation in border counties - Cavan, Donegal, Louth, and Monaghan.
Mr Denihan said decisive action is needed in the Budget to combat cross border shopping and to encourage consumers to spend some of the 12 per cent of disposable income currently saved.
“Excise levels on alcohol should be reduced by 20 per cent because alcohol is the single biggest motivation for cross-border shopping trips. We have the highest excise in Europe for wine and the second highest for beer and spirits. The North now accounts for approximately half of all alcohol sales on the island because of cross-border shopping whereas it has about a third of the island's population.”
Mr Denihan said there should not be any further increases in taxation on consumers on Budget day and the VAT rate should be reduced to 18 per cent to stimulate retail sales. “The public are now saving 12 per cent of disposable income and they need to be encouraged to spend some of this to create employment and boost the economy,” he added.
Mr Denihan concluded: “In addition to the Budget the following measures need to be taken by Government: make retail jobs eligible for the Employment Subsidy Scheme, ban upward only rent reviews, abolish the Retail Joint Labour Committees, work with local authorities so that they can reduce commercial rates substantially when they set the 2010 rates during December.”
