Business had already been “tough” for Rebecca Harrison even before last week’s fuel protests knocked about 40 per cent off her turnover during what should have been a very busy week at her boutique and wellness centre in Co Wicklow.
Fishers of Newtownmountkennedy is a family-owned boutique that dates back to 1979. It has grown from a small country-clothing outfitter to a hub of retail, food and wellness activity, with a men’s wear shop, ladies boutique, gifts, homeware and accessories departments.
“It’s very much a destination sort of a business,” Harrison says. “Our customers generally travel to us from the surrounding area. We have a lot of people coming down from south Dublin and from the likes of Wicklow, Wexford, Kildare and Kilkenny.
“Business has been tough at the moment anyway, which is an underlying thing for everybody with the global situation. People are nervous, don’t have as much money, and are holding on to what they do have.”
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The protests across Ireland, which lasted for seven days, caused enormous traffic disruption on some national routes as hauliers and agricultural contractors began a series of demonstrations that grew from slow-moving convoys to the blockading of roads and fuel depots.
Those blockades were broken up by gardaí last weekend at O’Connell Street in Dublin, Foynes Port in Co Limerick, Whitegate oil refinery in Co Cork and Rosslare Harbour in Co Wexford. Subsequent protests on Monday were largely confined to road blockages.
While sympathetic to the cause of the protests, Harrison says they had a significant effect on her business.
“We were quite badly affected by the blockade,” she says. “There were three blockages on the N11 quite close to us where people were being routed off the road and then back on further down so there were a lot of tailbacks.
“That certainly had a significant impact on us on those days. The meeting point on the N11 for the initial convoy was just south of us here so we had an increased police presence around us on that morning as well, as the trucks and tractors made their way into Dublin.
“We were very quiet on that initial day and then on other days there were diversions around the place and people either couldn’t get to us or gave up trying to get to us because it was taking too long.
“People have to drive to us and we noticed decreased traffic in terms of customers coming to the store from further afield. There were definitely people who didn’t bother trying in the first place and others who turned back.”
She says numbers were “way down” on what was a “key weekend” around the Easter holidays, with people in “holiday mode” whereby they might have had time to go to the shops and spend. “So what should have been a very busy time became a very, very quiet one,” she says.
On a positive note, Harrison noticed more local people “popping in” because they couldn’t go anywhere else.
“They were working from home and hadn’t made their way into Dublin or their offices wherever they were located,” she says. “But it was a different kind of customer with a different type of budget.”
Harrison says the recent increase in fuel prices has also had an effect on her own bottom line. “Our margin is almost gone completely,” she says.
“While the increases are affecting everyone, if you’ve got a better margin because you’re a bigger company and able to buy more, you get better discounts. My point is this is hitting smaller businesses harder.
“Our location is wonderful but we’re also in a small town and if a business like ours closes – and the risk is higher now than it has been in a number of years – no multinational is going to come in and open here so there will be a void there in the town.”
Harrison adds there ought to have been “a swifter resolution” to the situation. “It shouldn’t have taken most of the week,” she says. “I don’t think it was necessary for it to have lasted that long, both in terms of the response and the protests themselves.”
Jenny Johnston, chief executive of Azure Communications in Damastown in Dublin, says the biggest impact on her business was in getting her 17 staff and deliveries “in and out of the building”. The business offers printing, packaging and marketing.
“Some of our staff were just delayed but others couldn’t get in at all,” she says. “It’s all very well for office or admin staff who can work from home, but many of them operate machinery and they need to be in the building to do their job. That was a bit troublesome.
“On one of the days in particular, I had a meeting in the morning and went to get on to the M50 to travel into the office, and the M50 was closed at that point.
“It was really things like that, or not being able to get deliveries in and production work out. We print and manufacture so we need a lot of paper supplies. We produce booklets and anything basically with ink on paper. That basically all stopped for a couple of days.
“We were producing work for customers but we literally just could not get it out to them. Most of our customers were aware of what was happening and were fairly understanding, but I’d say if it had have gone on any longer, we would have felt some backlash from customers.”
She adds sentiment from customers was “definitely down” and there were “a few really slow days” as a result.
Small Firms Association director David Broderick said his members, particularly in the retail and hospitality sector, reported a “noticeable drop in footfall and business activity” after the protests began.
“Any nationwide decline in economic activity has a disproportionate financial impact on small, indigenous businesses,” he said. “Coupled with crippling fuel costs, this crisis could not have come at a worse time for small businesses.”
A spokesman for Ibec said the “unprecedented nature of what unfolded” means it may take “days or even weeks to fully assess the damage caused”.
“Right now, we know many businesses across essential supply chains are working tirelessly to get supply chains back up and running to full capacity as well as managing the backlog,” he says.
“We welcome that the protests have been cleared and commend the efforts of An Garda Síochána and others in bringing the protests to an end.
“Together with Government and others, we will also need to review lessons that will need to be taken from the blockades of fuel depots, ports and other critical infrastructure to ensure that essential supply chains cannot be shut down in this manner through illegal protest.”
However, for Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association chief executive, Vincent Jennings, it is “clear this international crisis will not blow over and we will continue to see high wholesale prices for all fuel products for the foreseeable future”.
“When we ran out of fuel, it led to much-reduced business in our stores,” he adds. “What has been noticeable is the increase in sales of solid fuel products, unsurprising given the huge jump in kerosene prices.”
