Crisis in Mayo SME sector 'getting increasingly worse'

The crisis in the SME sector in Mayo is getting increasingly worse, Deputy Paul Lawless has stated.

He elaborated: "A Deloitte study recently found that almost 900 insolvencies occurred nationally in 2024, an increase of almost a third on 2023.

"It predicted that the increase will continue, as will the issues affecting SMEs.

"The worst affected sectors are the hospitality, fitness and beauty industries.

"Since the government hiked VAT, more than 700 restaurants have closed. This is having a major impact.

"Dereliction is an issue right across Mayo.

"The antidote to dereliction must be to first stem the tide of businesses closing.

"The fact that the Government has no idea how many businesses have closed and it does not collect that data is of major concern.

"We need to address this issue. We need to show the same proactive and pro-business approach that the government has shown to the foreign direct investment sector.

"Businesses in Mayo are struggling - restaurants, shops, pubs, the fitness and beauty sectors and many other areas.

"It is important we understand that to address dereliction in towns, we must first stem the tide of business losses."

Deputy Lawless made his comments after being unsuccessful in seeking collated statistics from the Department of An Taoiseach on the number of SMEs that have closed down in County Mayo in the past five years.

In reply, Minister of State Mary Butler outlined: "The Central Statistics Office, CSO, has responsibility for collating information on the number of enterprises that close each year as part of its work in developing and maintaining the CSO's central business register, CBR.

"The CBR is developed using data provided by the Companies Registration Office, CRO, and the Revenue Commissioners.

"The most recent data available on enterprise closures from the central business register, published as part of Business in Ireland - Insights on the Lifecycle of Businesses 2022, is for 2021, for preliminary enterprise closures.

"This is due to the CSO's approach whereby an enterprise is recorded as having ceased trading where no tax returns have been filed for two successive years, with one year of no returns being recorded.

"There are a lot of complicated details on the number of SMEs involved. The number of SMEs that closed in 2017 was 687. In 2018, it was 718. The preliminary figure for SME closures in 2021 is 740."