'You want to pay people well... It's just the Government is not making it easy these days'

Valerie Finnegan Cahill, owner of Ikon Hair in Cork City. Picture: Joleen Cronin

The recent Vat reduction for hairdressers gave Valerie Finnegan Cahill, owner of Ikon Hair in Cork City, some “breathing space” but budget changes such as the increases to the national minimum wage is another cost they are expected to absorb.

During the budget last year, the Government announced that the Vat charged on the food service sector and hairdressers would be cut from 13.5% to 9%. However, the implementation of the
reduction was delayed until July 1 a few months ago.

Ms Finnegan Cahill, who employs 11 people at Ikon Hair, said they had “just got some breathing space” when the Vat reduction came into effect.

“We had just literally seen a tiny light at the end of the tunnel, like it was just there that just helped us absorb the rising cost and to maintain our prices,” she said.

Coming into this year’s budget, Ms Finnegan Cahill said her priorities would have been wages, energy costs and stuff, and investing in the team.

During the budget, the national minimum wage was increased by 79c to €14.94. In order to lessen the impact of this increase, the employer PRSI threshold was increased from €552 to €600 per week for 2027.

Ms Finnegan Cahill said that she supports “fair pay all day long” because she sees how hard her team works and they are experiencing the same cost of living increases that everyone else is facing.

“I suppose as an employer, I have to look at everything together,” she said. “It’s the wage increase on top of paid sick leave, bank holiday pay, and all the other costs as well that we have to absorb.

“You want to pay people well, but I also need to keep the business healthy enough to keep paying them at the end of the day.

“Things like the PRSI relief I mean yes that’s definitely beneficial but it’s also payroll dependent. I won’t know what that looks like until I sit down with the payroll guys and see how that affects us.”

Ms Finnegan Cahill said that her business is “very lucky” in that they have a “great clientele” and “we’re a destination business, we’re not depending on footfall outside”.

“We’re trying to look after our teams. We’re trying to keep them in jobs, but we’re also trying to keep prices manageable for our clients because we know that they’re going through the same thing as us. It’s becoming tougher and tougher these days.

“We are being squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.

“I have an absolutely amazing team. It’s my job to keep them in a job and to pay them well, and I want to do that. It’s just the Government is not making it easy these days.”

Ms Finnegan Cahill said that she recently did a workshop with salon owners and the “amount of salon owners that are just going under these days is just incredible”.

“There’s no margins there anymore. There’s no breathing space at all.”