Small and Medium Enterprises
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-19
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Sinéad Gibney (SD), Dublin Rathdown

This issue has been raised with me and I suggest that if the Government is looking for practical measures, this is one that it should explore. We have a landscape where many small businesses do not even have retail spaces any more and make the majority of their money from online orders which they then have to send via the post or by courier to their customers. The cost of doing this has gone through the roof and there is very little these businesses can do to mitigate it, except to put up their prices. I hear so much talk about Ireland's competitiveness and the need to support a competitive economy and yet this has a huge impact on the ability of small businesses to compete. This is at a time when we are encouraging businesses to explore further digitalisation. Local enterprise offices can only do so much and we need to see real ambition from the Department when it comes to addressing the daily struggles of small businesses in a meaningful way.
I accept that this should be raised with An Post directly and with the other Department with oversight of that organisation. However, this is not the first time that I have raised an issue only to be told to go to another Minister but I would argue that this is what Cabinet is for. Ministers can liaise with each other at Cabinet and the Department of enterprise can connect with the Department of culture, communications and sport to ensure that these small businesses are not being penalised.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-19