Rent rate pushes SMEs off main streets

MASSIVE increases in rents are forcing indigenous businesses out of Cork’s premier streets, and if the exodus continues it will soon be populated with just phone shops and multinationals.

That was the stark warning made yesterday by Cork Business Association (CBA) president, Peter O’Donoghue, who des- cribed the situation as a “crisis” and said his organisation knew of 14 retailers who were trying to get out because they just couldn’t keep up rental payments.

The CBA is to lobby TDs in the hope that an Oireachtas committee will be set up to examine the problem and come up with safeguards which will maintain the lifeblood of Irish businesses.

“Increases in rent are running at almost 30% per annum. If the banks increased their rates that much there’d be an outcry and an Oireachtas committee inquiry,” the CBA president said, adding: “When somebody lands in Cork they want to know they’re in Cork and not in Newcastle or Leeds.”