Downfall of the small business leading to the decline of rural communities

A MAYO WOMAN'S VIEW

By Barbara Daly

A friend has a small business here in town.

He is open three years now and you would say that it has been a success.

It is providing a service, not an essential one, but a useful one, to the local community.

The talk in the town is that it is great to have that service available locally and it is provided to a very high standard.

My friend loves what he does and has all the right skills and experience to match. He was made for the job.

It is hard, physical and often dirty work but he does not mind. He loves being his own boss and every day is different to some extent.

You can hear a ‘But..’ coming, can’t you? And there is a but, a very significant one.

Unfortunately the business, for my friend, is not financially sustainable.

The overheads are too great and because he is only one person with space to do only one job at a time he cannot make enough profit to pay himself a decent wage.

He is making a wage that most self-respecting 20 year olds would not work for.

He is 52 years old and has a mortgage and two small children.

So what does he do?

He has just received a bill for public liability insurance for almost €1,000. He needs to pay it but he seriously doubts that he will still be open for another year.

He has started to look for other jobs, jobs where there is a regular liveable wage paid every Friday. A job where he does not have to worry about whether he will be able to pay his bills next week or whether a piece of equipment will need to be replaced anytime soon.

I feel sad for him.

He is sad to have to give up this business he has worked so hard at and which was been such a source of pride. He feels like he is failing but he knows he would be a fool to continue to work so hard for so little return.

The first two years he received a Back to Work Enterprise Allowance which in hindsight made the business seem more viable.

It was a huge help but when it was finished there was nothing he could do to replace it. He could not physically work any harder and with bad weather, the cost of living crisis and general unpredictability of custom he could not make himself any busier.

And then there were the increasing overheads. Everything he needed to run the business costs more than it did three years ago but he does not feel that he can put his prices up for fear of out-pricing himself.

Many customers have less money and are not willing to part with what they have.

His is the only such service in the town and the nearest service is in Westport. It is a much bigger set-up and if my friend closes they will no doubt swallow up his customers.

Another small business will close and all that effort and energy and customer goodwill will be for nothing.

This is how small rural communities decline. This is how the energy and life is sucked out of them.

The community I live in used to have a business or even two in every building in the town. This is hard to imagine now.

It must have been such a vibrant, lived-in community. Nowadays a brave few, like my friend, open a much-needed new business in the town and after a struggle they close again.

Support for small businesses is essential if communities are going to strive and thrive.

People could once again live in these communities and bring new life to them.