Town councillors have rejected a proposal by Marks & Spencer for a major retailing unit at the Manor West retail park on the outskirts of Tralee.
A material contravention of the town plan was needed to allow the development to go ahead. The shopping park is zoned retail-warehouse and original planning conditions give the council a say on the kind of stores that go in there. Only three councillors voted for the proposal, with nine voting against.
Afterwards, retail park manager Mark Rusk said the decision to reject Marks & Spencer was "astounding" and councillors had seriously misjudged the mood of the public in Kerry.
The proposal by Marks & Spencer for a 30,000 sq ft €6 million store employing 100 people had been in the pipeline for more than two years, said Johnny Wall, a former mayor of Tralee and one of its few supporters at the special meeting on Monday night.
Councillors opposing the move said they feared for town-centre businesses. They also wanted to persuade the retail giant to move nearer the town centre, particularly into the headquarters of the GAA and an adjoining pitch for which a local business consortium recently announced plans.
However, Marks & Spencer executive Neil Hyslop wrote to councillors to say his company had already considered the GAA Mitchells and Austin Stack Park sites and they were not currently an option. Councillors admitted to getting phone calls from traders and they also received a strong letter from the backers of the GAA stadium proposal, opposing the Marks & Spencer move into Manor West.
Proposing the material contravention, Mr Wall (Fianna Fáil) said two jobs, let alone 100, would be welcome in a town where there were more than 3,000 unemployed. He was not willing to lose the chance of those jobs.
Seconding the proposal, Labour's Miriam McGillycuddy said she could only see the positives. As well as 100 well-paid union jobs, "the draw for the town as a whole would be huge", she said, adding that people from Kerry were travelling to Cork to shop at the nearest M&S store.
There was now a huge danger it would move to Killarney, just as the Liebherr crane factory had 50 years ago when Tralee rejected it, she said. Also supporting the proposal, Karen Tobin (Lab) said Marks & Spencer had "unequivocally stated" they would not go to any other location in Tralee.
"Month after month, we discuss problems of unemployment in this town," Ms Tobin said, urging her fellow councillors to set aside "vested interests and look at what is the correct decision for the people of this town".
Sinn Féin's Cathal Foley said Marks & Spencer had put "an economic gun to our heads" (by stating it would only use the Manor West site).
"Do we set a precedent for the next major retailer who comes to this town? When do we cry stop?" he asked.
Labour general election candidate Terry O'Brien criticised the lack of openness and contribution to the public debate by traders and the Chamber of Commerce, but said he did not want Tralee to be a dead town centre and would oppose the proposal.