This article is from page 23 of the 2011-01-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 23 JPG
CLARE will have to create its own luck and its own jobs in 2011 according to the incoming President of the Ennis Chamber of Commerce.
‘The most patriotic thing anyone can do for the county or the country is to create a job,” John Dillane told The Clare People .
John is calling for a special meeting to set up a group which will “involve all the stakeholders in the county. The council, the development agencies, the business people – everyone. And this group should have as its aim job creation to get this county back on its feet. We need to get off our backsides and do it for ourselves and every single person in the country needs to get involved in that.”
Mr Dillane said that according to PLATO, the organisation which supports small businesses, there are 800,000 people working in 270,000 SME’s across the counntry.
‘I’m calling on any companies that have some money in their pockets to come together and be part of this organisation for Clare. We can make a difference, we can employ more people and we have to wake up and cop on to ourselves. There’s no reason why we can’t start a movement in Clare that will turn things around for this county.”
Mr Dillane, who is proprietor of Banner Motors, says that in the coming year the “red carpet should be rolled out for anyone who is employing people”.
In his own capacity as the new President of the Chamber, Mr Dillane says he hopes to motivate people in the county to get more people back in the workforce and to persuade consumers to support their own and spend their money in the Banner.
He said there also needs to be greater recognition of what is being done by Banner county employees.
“There are business people in this county employing people and not paying themselves any wages because they don’t want to have to let staff go. That is a fact.”
“If you create one job, that creates .6 of another job. So a small company employing two people makes it possible for one other person to be in employment.
Mr Dillane is appealing to business owners and other groups in Clare to “put all our differences aside, Yes, people in business have competitors but this is about the survival and growth of business and employment in the county. If you have people at work, you have people spending money and that’s good for everybody. It’s just common sense and if anyone wants to put their money where their mouth is and make recovery a reality in Clare, I’m asking them to contact me through the Chamber of Commerce.”