Street markets accepted "on sufferance"

"LOCAL authorities look on market and street traders in the same way an ordinary person looks on warts," says Mr Tommy Lyons. "They're there but are to be got rid of as soon as possible."

Mr Lyons spent 21 years as a mobile trader, travelling to markets all around the country selling drapery. Now retired, he has lost all hope that street markets can be revived, regulated and improved to levels of their European counterparts.

"The markets are completely disorganised. You went and hoped to get a pitch. But you weren't guaranteed. I might drive from Dublin to Mitchelstown and there would be no place to pitch. So I'd lose the day and then there'd be the expense of getting there and other costs."

Even if there was a pitch for the trader there were basic problems, such as no toilets. "A Government Minister said one time that everybody has the right to running water and toilets. Well, in the case of market traders those rights don't apply."

His relationship with local authorities was fraught and the same situation still applies. "You worked with the knowledge that in a lot of cases you were there on sufferance - if that."

In the run up to the introduction of the Casual Trading Act, he met Government and opposition TDs. "We wanted to more or less educate them to the fact that if the local authorities were going to regulate the markets then it wouldn't work at all."

With the exception of the bigger cities, such as Dublin and Cork, he believes most rural local authorities are local business people who have no great affinity for markets and no great liking for market traders. Under the present system there was no appeal against the authorities for the fees charged for street markets.

Most markets operate one day a week but the annual licence fee to trade in the market could cost up to £800, depending on the council. "Before you even start trading at the beginning of the year, you need £5,000 or £6,000 to pay the licence for each local authority if you trade seven days a week. The local authorities are trying to wipe out market trading by making it too expensive to be profitable."