Thurles business community detects uptick ahead of budget

Thurles is a fairly typical former market town in a rural area, if there is such a thing. The shopping centre has taken a lot of the jizz out of the town centre, and it's a long time since the farmers were in the practice of bringing their product into town to sell it before doing some shopping and maybe stopping for a few pints on Liberty Square.

When this newspaper visited the town for the purposes of making a video about what people would like to see in today's Budget, it was interesting the way the remarks people made in broad terms reflected the debate on the economy as it is seen from Government Buildings.

That the period since the crash has been hard for so many was illustrated in stark terms by Tim Floyd, the full-time secretary of the GAA’s county board, who spoke of how gate receipts, the organisation’s main source of income in the county, fell by as much as 80 per cent. People saw their disposable incomes disappear, and cut back on cigarettes, socialising, and going to matches, amongst other expenditures.

Likewise Pat Butler saw business drop off in his Emmet Street barber shop, where the average age profile rose as young people emigrated, and such a high proportion of the young men that do come to get their hair cut, were unemployed.

But they also said that they had noticed a change. The mood, according to Pat Butler, has been better since last Christmas. Tim Floyd said some rural clubs are getting back players in their mid-20s who emigrated when in their late teens.

Everyone said it would help matters now if the Government would allow people have more disposable income, and that what Thurles really needs is jobs. .

For Dr Rebecca Purcell, head of business at St Patrick’s College of Education, what was most needed from the Budget was that it build on the positivity she says people are begining to feel around Tipperary in general.

Tomorrow we will report on what people in Thurles thought of what was actually in the Budget.