Election 2024: 'If we don’t have staff, we don’t have a business' says Cork shop owner
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He’s been involved in the family retail business since he was a child in the early 1980s, helping out behind the counter of his parents’ Pat and Maureen’s first small neighbourhood shop in the western suburbs of Cork city.
Today, Kevin Herlihy, along with his brother Brian, now runs that Centra store in Bishopstown, along with a chain of six other Centra stores as part of the Herlihy Group, employing more than 300 people in their stores in Fermoy and Mallow, Bishopstown, and the city centre shops, on Grand Parade, Oliver Plunkett St, North Main St, and on St Patrick’s St.
Given his experience, and as a former president of the Cork Business Association, Mr Herlihy is uniquely positioned to comment on the challenges facing small to medium enterprises (SMEs) operating in Ireland today.
And while he doesn’t agree with Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary’s recent controversial jab at teachers, he does endorse O’Leary’s view that more business people or business owners, or certainly more people “with a business head”, should be in government.
“We need more Dáil candidates with a business head on them. We need a mix of business and non-business people to make the Dáil work. We need people in there who can think on their feet, think progressively and react quickly,” he says.
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“I’m not blaming government for the external factors like covid, Ukraine and Gaza but they are exacerbating the problems.
“It’s like almost every day, something else hits us.”
Cork has been left reeling from a raft of high-profile closures in recent months — long-established family-run businesses like Tung Sing on St Patrick’s St, Nash 19, Lennoxs, and the Perry Street chain.
Mr Herlihy says it’s become exceptionally challenging to run a retail or hospitality business in Ireland today, he says.
“For the last five years, the government has been hitting businesses with cost after cost after cost,” he says.
“We saw some cost rises that were beyond the government’s control, like during covid and the soaring inflation after the war in Ukraine which hit energy costs but there are loads of decisions they’ve made that have just heaped costs onto us, and done so in quick succession.”
He cites increases to the minimum wage, changes to sick pay arrangements, pension auto enrolment and the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) as classic examples of how government policies introduced in quick succession hit businesses directly in the pocket.
“On the DRS alone, we had to pay €60,000 for those machines,” he says.
“We got a small grant towards the cost of each machine but when it came down to it, it cost us €20,000 net per machine, and we had to put machines into three stores.
“We had to get electrical work done and we had to remove the doors in one store to get a machine in, and that all adds to the cost.
“They introduced all of these policies but never batted an eyelid about the impact they might have.”
And that’s ever before you consider how soaring energy costs, the housing crisis, crime, security and public transport problems have hit businesses and their ability to attract and retain staff.
In a bid to control soaring energy costs during the early days of the war in Ukraine, the Herlihy Group invested €150,000 in energy efficient refrigerators in bid to control costs. It helped reduce energy consumption in one store alone by 40%.
But Kevin says if the Green Party was really serious about encouraging retailers to make energy efficiency upgrades, grants would at least double, and tax on diesel — which he says is driving up the cost of raw materials — would be reduced.
“The Greens really put the cart before the horse,” he says.
Gridlock has already cost him a staff member, who left her job in one of their city centre stores because her 7km commute to Glanmire had become an unbearable 90-minute journey every evening.
The housing crisis has also hit the group, which bought several properties just after covid to rent to its employees at a reasonable rate. The group now accommodates about 44 staff members.
“If we don’t have staff, we don’t have a business — simple as,” Kevin says.
The new government must also get to grips with crime, security and overhaul the justice system, with shoplifting now such a massive problem, the group is forking out €250,000 a year to provide night-time security in its four city centre stores.
“We had a break-in in one store in August, and ordered a new gate, and then had a second break-in within 10 days,” he says.
“Gardaí arrested the accused about a half an hour later, brought them before a special court sitting that afternoon, where they were given bail, and they were back in the same store stealing that evening.
“It’s like the magic roundabout. There’s no deterrent, there doesn’t seem to be any accountability. And they really need to tackle that.”
During his time with the CBA, Kevin met senior Cabinet members, including a former Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, a former Tánaiste Simon Coveney and a former finance Minster, Michael McGrath.
“We were always able to put our point to them, they would have always listened and taken it on board, but they didn’t really hear us,” he says.
“They really need to listen to us. They need to listen to business owners.”
A collection of the latest business articles and business analysis from Cork.