Just a few years ago the Dublin City Centre Business Association was all a-flutter about out-of-town shopping centres. "Overshopped" was the buzz phrase, with its implied threat to the livelihoods of struggling city shopkeepers and countless low-paid assistants. But when the Liffey Valley developers open their latest "high-street England" venture with its 23-acre car park just 9.5 km from the city centre, not a cross word will issue from the DCCBA. The reason being that its most prominent members - Marks & Spencer, Virgin, Boots, Carphone Warehouse, Monsoon, Next, Oasis etc - are also the main colonists of the Liffey Valley. How times have changed.
RGDATA, the small grocers' association, is not complaining either. Its wildest dream was fulfilled when a new ministerial directive on superstores yanked the proposed two-acre Tesco superstore from the plan, generating more business for the High Court (a challenge is in train) and leaving the fresh food field to the upmarket Marks & Spencer.
The unemployed of the blackspots around Clondalkin will hardly be complaining either, assuming that the new centre lives up to expectations as a source of employment for huge numbers of local residents.
Nor will anyone within a reasonable radius of the M50/N4 be moaning. Those of us who had to trek the few kilometres further to Blanchardstown or Tallaght to shop in high-street England or to pay through the nose for multiplex popcorn can rejoice in parking the car a little closer to home.
So everyone is happy, right? Not quite. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Enterprise and Small Business has proved to be the party pooper. Under the chairmanship of Senator Paul Coghlan, its analysis of the English situation makes chastening reading. Employment? New jobs created by out-of-town superstores are usually more than offset by an average net loss of 276 full-time equivalents in the town. Environment? Given their dependency on car-based custom, out-of-town superstores are seen as one of the greatest single contributors to increased car journeys in the UK. Quality of life? As the local high streets succumb to the inevitable loss of business, the town centre becomes "unpeopled, sterile and lifeless". Those without access to a car - the elderly and the immobile - see their options further reduced.
And yet, few brakes are being applied. The competition between Greater Dublin's multitude of local authorities for commercial rates means that out-of-town shopping centres are an attractive proposition - the bigger, the better. Even as the smaller shopping centres are being squeezed out, permission is being sought for a big new one at the edge of Clondalkin, down the road from the Liffey Valley. The application for a huge discount outlet at Goff's near Naas is still in the pipeline. As Dublin city explodes with more and bigger stores and malls, towns such as Naas, Newbridge, Dunshaughlin, Carlow, Navan and Mullingar can only hang in there and hope the Celtic Tiger maintains his pace and that the Minister bangs some planning heads together.
