EDITORIAL: Closure of small businesses could be flap of butterfly's wings that starts next recession

Mai’s Café at Market Place in Clonmel closed its doors for the final time on Friday last, October 21.

After six years of being in Clonmel, local couple Shane and Kay McGonigle took the decision not to renew their lease at Market Place.

Mai’s Café is the latest small, local business to shut its doors in south Tipperary. It’s worth noting that all recent business closures have been for their own reasons but the number of local closure announcements is alarming.

Earlier this month, there was a sense of shock in the Clerihan community as the Daybreak shop closed suddenly with spiralling business costs blamed for the closure.

Clonmel’s town centre suffered another blow with the news that O’Gorman’s Bakery, café and shop on O’Connell Street closed as well at the beginning of the month.

The business, one of the oldest in the town, closed its doors for good.

It was the end of an era for O’Connell Street and the family-run business, which was started 62 years ago by Mary O’Gorman and her husband, the late Tony O’Gorman, and which became something of an institution in the town centre.

The closure of small, local businesses in Tipperary is fast becoming a full-on crisis and something needs to be done about.

It’s not just the loss for the business owners but all these small and medium enterprises are important employers in towns and villages.

Tipperary TD Mattie McGrath has also this week highlighted how a family-owned supermarket in a small town in county Tipperary that employs 50 people has seen its energy bill rise from €7,500 per month to €18,900 per month, an increase of 152%.

These bills and the circumstances local businesses find themselves in are clearly unsustainable and more doors will close. The question is, what can be done about it?

These businesses survived the Covid-19 pandemic, more needs to be done to help them survive this cost-of-living crisis.

Or will the troubles and closures of these small and medium enterprises be the flap of the butterfly’s wings that starts the next recession.