Businesses look for new ways to survive

Every sector of society was expecting pain from Budget 2010 and likewise, they all had a wish-list in advance of yesterday’s speech. Claire O’Sullivan travelled to the north Cork town of Mallow last week to talk to retailers and business people about what the town wanted and needed from Brian Lenihan’s budget.

TRYING to generate employment in an Irish city is one thing, but imagine if you’re trying to attract companies to a small town in the south in the midst of the biggest global recession since World War Two?

That is the challenge facing small towns in Ireland as they try to make themselves self-sufficient and not just another rural outpost providing cheap housing to workers in the bigger cities.