These businesses employ 35,000 staff in Cork City and County and contribute €5BN to the Irish economy.
Cork City & County is to have a dedicated organisation to represent its retail sector at a time of transformation for the local and global retail market. Cork Retailers Association has been established to give a voice of the 35,000 people working in 5,000 retailers across the region.
Spokesperson for the newly launched Cork Retailers Association John Minihan said:
“Since last year we have been carefully analysing and evaluating the position with retail in Cork and following a meeting last week where we invited Retail Excellence to make a presentation to us on what the future of retail in Cork could be, we have been overwhelmed with the response from Cork retailers. There has never been a dedicated voice for retail in Cork and with the very large sector that it is and the conduit that it is for everything economic in Cork, we are taking on the challenge of establishing this organisation so that we can embrace change and effect change.
Our message is all about positivity and progress for this sector and we want a seat at the table of decision making on retail in Cork City and County and for an industry of this size, that seat is long overdue. We want Cork to be the Retail Capital of Ireland South and to reinvent its offering. We want every suburb, village and town in Cork to look at its local offering and reinvent itself where it needs to so that it remains relevant, vibrant and ready to embrace a future that will support it. We have established an interim executive consisting of Cork retailers Pam O’ Regan, Tim Keane, Paul Gallagher, Wyon Stansfeld, Michael Mulcahy, Eddie Mullins and myself and in the coming time, we will announce full details of the organisation, its strategy and its offering. Retail Excellence is currently compiling a report on retail in Cork and we look forward to working with this progressive national retailers group that has affected so much change in so many parts of Ireland to date.”
