As retailers gear up for a busy Christmas season, there are signs people are putting their trust back in the city
As retailers gear up for a busy Christmas season, there are signs shoppers are putting their trust back in the city, its co-owner Cliff Nolan is having a quick smoke. Today his shop bears little sign of what occurred a year ago, when it was looted during’s city centre became, for a number of hours, a scene of social unrest, with arson and vandalism in streets in and around“It was just shock. I didn’t know what to think,” says Nolan of that night.
A bus burns just off O'Connell Street Bridge in Dublin during rioting on November 23rd, 2023. Photograph: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie. I am not born here. I am not from here. And if they want to sacrifice me as an example of ‘another immigrant’, I could be the target. Even though I’m 100 per cent rooted here, I pay heavy taxes, I run shops and I bought a house.” But he adds: “I know what happened doesn’t represent Irish people.
She’s still in Ireland 41 years on. While Dún Laoghaire has her heart, as it’s where she first opened her business, White has been based on Lower Liffey Street for two years. During the riots she had to take shelter in a nearby Chinese restaurant along with several other people. “The city centre is coming back to itself,” says White. “We had a rough year.
Like the other business owners, White believes more visible policing would deter criminal activity: recently, someone damaged the outside of her business with a hammer. She’d like measures such as cheaper car-parking fees to make city visits less expensive for clients. One of the shops badly looted on November 23rd, 2023, was the Asics store across the bridge from Books Upstairs on O’Connell Street Lower. Business partners Sunil Shah and Paul Gallagher, who co-own the Asics store and the Skechers franchise in Dublin, were at a black-tie affair that night in London when word began coming through about the riots. The pair immediately changed their flights home.
There are several recent or imminent policy changes that retailers feel will affect them, including changes to paid sick leave, the minimum wage increasing to €13.50 from January 1st, and pension auto-enrolment beginning in September 2025. “You can’t put wage increases on businesses where margins are tight and expect everything to come out smelling of roses,” says Gallagher. He’s looking for more Government support for retailers, such as a reduction in the 23 per cent VAT rate.
“The main core issue is that people don’t feel as safe in Dublin as we would like them to feel,” says Guiney, adding that it’s not just a matter of increasing Garda numbers. “We also need to look at how we assist the more vulnerable members of our society. And the uses of space in Dublin, bringing in new uses, bringing in residential uses, and a holistic approach to planning.
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