The country is facing a swathe of shop closures unless the Government immediately steps in to tackle the "perfect storm" engulfing small retailers, an Oireachtas committee has heard.
Rocketing costs will "shut down many viable but vulnerable shops" as they grapple with "the most challenging and most stressful time" since the 1950s, the Joint Committee on Enterprise was told today.
Tara Buckley, director general of Retail Grocery Dairy and Allied Traders Association (RGDATA), said that business supports must urgently be improved.
Specifically, she is pressing for the Temporary Business Energy Support Scheme (TBESS) to be backdated to March, rather than September, as is the case now.
One retailer pleaded, if her business is to survive, "We desperately need your help".
The current start date fails to acknowledge "the urgency of the crisis", Vincent Jennings, CEO of the Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association, said.
"These businesses cannot be left to wither on the vine due solely to the actions of Russian bullies", he insisted.
"A 40% rebate on energy bills still leaves them with an unsustainable and mounting drain on their cash-flow", Mr Jennings added.
"We're not quitters or moaners," he said, with many families running businesses across generations.
With energy bills rising from €6,500 to €22,000 over the past year for one of his members, the other challenges of upward-only rents, negotiating with vulture funds, and rising payroll costs "pale into insignificance," he said.
Colin Fee, President of RGDATA, runs four convenience stores and a pub/restaurant in Dundalk.
He lives locally, works in his store every day, employs almost 100 people and supports local suppliers.
For the first time in 35 years in the trade, he fears for the future of his business.
He said has seen off the Troubles, cross-border shopping and fuel laundering, foot-and-mouth disease, the economic collapse and the Covid-19 pandemic.
"In all that time, I was never as worried about the viability of the business as I am now," he told the Committee.
"The most challenging and stressful time we have ever faced" is becoming "not sustainable", he added.
Mr Fee said that his businesses use a lot of chicken; the cost is up by 80%, with the price of milk up 50%.
When you add the new demands of a living wage, statutory sick pay and obligatory pension contributions, he warned that "something's going to have to give".
He has already started cutting hours, and believes that without urgent action job losses are inevitable.
"We going to see shop closing", he told the committee.
Annie Timothy runs a supermarket in Abbeytown, Co Roscommon.
"€37,000 off the bottom line has walked out my back door in the last five months", she said.
"We desperately need your help in order for us to survive", she appealed to the committee.
"Family businesses employ nearly a million people" and are "the beating heart" of towns and villages nationwide, John McGrane, Executive Director of the Family Business Network Ireland, said.
He noted that this "is twice the aggregate of the state sector and foreign direct investment sector combined".
They are the bedrock of the economy, rather than multinationals upon whom the Exchequer has now clearly become overly reliant, he added.
When adversity strikes, unlike multinationals, they will not leave these shores, he said, provided they get the support they need to survive.
