Since Trump won the presidential election in early November, Ireland’s economists, including David McWilliams, have been analysing his policies’ impact on Ireland over the coming years. It’s not a pretty picture. Realistically, any promises made by campaigning Government parties about the national budget over the next five years have a big asterisk beside them. How can we know what money the State will have? Our relationship with the multinationals is uncertain at best; loyalty isn’t a large corporation’s strongest suit.
My husband and I own a cafe-bakery in Kenmare, Co Kerry. I process these projections by economists with concern and frustration, reflecting on the hospitality industry’s struggles in recent times. Over the past 18 months, all the small home-grown industries have been begging the Government to show some sign that they value the 270,000 jobs provided, not to mention the billions of euros it brings to the economy. Tourism on the Wild Atlantic Way alone is worth €3 billion a year. Instead, it’s been a case of increased taxes and PRSI, pension contributions, rates increases, sick pay, etc, destroying the margins of the hospitality industry and directly leading to the closure of more than 600 indigenous food businesses.
Tourism/hospitality has had its ups and downs but it has been a reasonably steady industry in Ireland for decades. There’s no risk of its collapse in terms of wider international interest. Yes, 2008-2010 were downturns after the worldwide economic crash, but by 2011 things were rebounding. Tourism figures fell, not because the State was in recession, but because the world was. That won’t be the case this time. Even if we go into tough economic times due to Trump, if the Americans do well out of his policies, they’ll want to travel.
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People are itching to come to Ireland if only we can make it more attractive. It always amazes me in the cafe that while we locals bemoan the weather and tell tourists, “if you’d only been here last week, you’d have had glorious weather”, they mostly smile and nod, enjoying interacting with a friendly Irish person and saying that they came to this country understanding the weather and that it’s a wonderful place either way.
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What worries me is that with the closure of those 600-plus food businesses, international chains will replace them, companies that can afford to work with ridiculously tight margins, because they offer a conveyor belt-style production process. However, the question is, do we want to eat additive-filled panini a week old and cooked in the plastic in which they came? If what has already happened to England and to some extent in Dublin, where coffee and food chains have replaced independent cafes, takes place countrywide, do you think we’ll have tourists flying seven hours across the Atlantic to go to one of the chains that exist everywhere, or from mainland Europe to experience this?
I get it: the hospitality industry is hard work, a huge daily grind for everyone from policymakers down, when compared with the multinational option. All it seems necessary to do to get multinationals to come to Ireland is offer low tax. I know we like to think other things, such as an educated population, are big factors for these companies, but the tax regime is the bottom line. It’s the laziest, easiest win for the Government to get jobs into this country. But If Trump and his team do what they promise, if Howard Lutnick’s nomination to lead the Department of Commerce is confirmed, this State could lose €10 billion in taxes, not to mention big redundancies that would happen with multinationals returning to the US. Easy come, easy go. It’ll be a hollow victory if we SMEs are proven right, that the Government should have valued us and not put all its eggs in one basket.
However, even in this dire situation, the hospitality industry can hold up if it is valued by the incoming government and they review all recent policies that are decimating hospitality. In 2024, it was extremely hard as a small-business owner to watch the outgoing government allow costs to mount in our industry, while they proceeded with a bonanza budget in the hope it would win them more seats in the election.
[ ‘I honestly have no idea how I’m going to save my restaurant from going under’Opens in new window ]
We must make ourselves more competitive. I can see why tourists decide on the Canary Islands, and not our island, when two nights in a Dublin hotel are the same price as flights and seven nights’ accommodation there. However, this needs to start with the government. The new administration must review the financial policies affecting the industry. Equally, it must investigate food inflation rigorously to see if it’s true inflation and not simply price gouging. This will help not just small food businesses, but all consumers. Then, if changes are implemented based on these efforts, the industry must examine prices so this country continues to appeal to visitors.
The hospitality industry is complex, having to contend with food safety regulation, margins and heavy levels of staffing needed. It demands more care for less reward than an Apple or Microsoft. But it is our own, home-grown industry. In good years and bad, it will always be here if the government values it, along with the hundreds of thousands of jobs it provides. Let’s face it, I won’t be moving our cafe and its 10 jobs to Silicon Valley. Though with their 7.5 per cent tax rate, I’d be sorely tempted.
Jamie O’Connell is a writer who, with his husband, John Hallissey, owns Bean & Batch in Kenmare, Co Kerry @beanandbatchkenmare on Instagram
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