Ovestating the Case

While much has been said in the media, both locally and nationally, about the regeneration of certain troubled areas of Limerick on foot of the Fitzgerald Report's findings, less column inches have been given to the rejuvenation of Thomas Street in the city centre. Well at least that was the case until this evening, when it made the front page of the Limerick Leader.

Apparently, Thomas St traders are not too happy with the construction works, the proprietor of a health food shop said her turnover for this month is down 14% compared to January 2007. In actual fact, as I walked up the street towards college this morning, watching the shopkeepers set up shop for the day, I couldn't help thinking that they were due for a very quiet day indeed. That is the consequence of your whole street undergoing a temporary dredging as part of the construction process I suppose.

However, I found the article to be somewhat unclear, if not misleading. The paper reports that shop owners have said that the pedestrianisation of the street has badly affected trade in the area. In the article itself, all the shopkeepers quoted run businesses on upper Thomas Street, in other words the part of the street where roadworks are ongoing at the moment, rather than the lower part of the street, where it has been fully pedestrianised for some months since work finished last year. I found no indication in the article whether the retailers were referring to the pedestrianisation in progress or the area with completed pedestrianisation as being what hinders their trade. Regarding the latter area, I have found that most people I meet, both from Limerick and further afield have greeted its development with nothing but positive comments.

This brings me down to the subject of the post's heading. 'It would be easier to run a business in Beirut than Thomas St' was a comment ascribed to one particular trader. How? Beirut is a city engulfed in violence at the moment - at least eight people have been killed in deadly riots over power and water cuts in recent days; on 15 January a bomb exploded near the US Embassy, killing three people. I think to try to compare their temporary plight while their street is being spruced up by City Council to that of their Lebanese counterparts in this time of strife is a bit disingenuous.

As I say in this post's title, the person who made those comments was simply overstating the case.