The Local Authority Set To Explore A New 'Rediscover Ennis' initiative

0:00that the local authority who are set to explore and who rediscover Ennis initiative at the proposal would aim to maximize the benefits of the recently completed public realm. Project, the plans would include music played on public speakers throughout the town, tried musicians and key public spaces, and the opening of overflow car parks on weekends, free of charge, the Ennis Fienafel councillor, Antoinette Baker-Bassue, I believe, radical changes needed to increase footfall. I was traveling up the country in County Meath, and they had free parking on a Saturday, and I was saying this is probably one of the busiest days of the week, but they were off from free parking as an incentive for the businesses. And we all know the negativity that was around the public realm works, and as opposed to Director in 2014, save Ennis, we finally come out the other side of that. And I think now what we need to do is we discover Ennis, make it a joyous place to come in. We've all, like I work in a county school, so a lot of the people that worked are outside of Ennis would say, oh, we don't bother really coming in to Ennis because there's no parking, or there's nothing on.

1:02And I just want to say, I want to assure that this is a town, it's a vibrant town. There's something probably on our weekend, but if we pilot a scheme where we're deliberately putting music into the town, asking the community groups that we sponsor and help to come and give an hour of their time and make it a more festival, I suppose a happier place that you can walk the streets and listen to something, and then go and have some, do you have your coffee, go shop, but then there's something on the streets to keep you here. And so I just decided, sure, why not? Give free parking, let's see how it goes. Now, they have agreed to open up, and the RS or Drumbeagle are the wise national for overflow, if they deem it's necessary. So we need to prove to them that this is necessary. We need to say, yes, we want to come in. We want to rediscover Ennis, what has Ennis got to offer? The streets look amazing. The shops are open for business, and we need to show outside of Ennis what we can offer. A bit of a catch-22 situation there, as well,

2:04because obviously it comes to loan car parks, which are the ones you've called for free parking in on these dates between the men, the June bank holiday on weekends, and again, Drumbeagle, or Scumtea and Clau, where we are right now, and a couple more that I'm sure after that. My head, I'm neglecting to mention, but your catch-22 there obviously is a set. You want them open for people to be able to get easy parking in Ennis, and I know the council has pledged to do it as an overflow measure, but you'd be afraid that people will come in and say, I've got to go and get parking, and then we'll never get to see the overflow. Yeah, so this is why the pilots give needs. They need to open those parking spaces to show they're utilized, because right now they're just sitting there, and days that are not being utilized for workers. Yeah, it's going to take taking a boat. Everybody has to walk together. Like we have to walk together in the town, to walk into town. The people who work in the town have to work together, and park maybe slightly outside of town, and let people park in those spaces. It's not an easy fix. We're all in human nature.

3:05We all want to go for the most available spot. I would go around for my shopping, and I'm thinking, oh, I want to be nearest to the door. It just takes re-educating our sense of minds to say, just because we've to walk five minutes or 10 minutes, doesn't mean it's not important to go in and shop, and we discover our town. And just finally answered, what commitment did you actually get to? What did the local authorities say they will do? So the committee that got today was mainly from the tourism that they said they have initiatives going on, and they were looking at these. And there was a commitment there to open, excuse me, those overflow parking spaces. No commitment to give it us for free, which I think they should. I think they should do this, and it's a pilot basis. If it's not working, you can say, will we try it? Everybody needs to work together, and with the commitment from the council, I'm hoping that the commitment will be there from the business people, and the chambers of commerce to do something as well. It takes one step, so someone has to make that first step, and I think it has to be the council.

4:05The Ennis Fienafol councilor, Antoinette Baker, Baeshuah speaking on this particular initiative. I'm joined for more on this by the Chair of Retailers of Ennis John O'Connor, John. Good morning, too. Thanks for coming in. Thank you very much. And before you started to the mundane of Ennis problems, the Venice, I've been half a Kerimian. I feel very duty-bound and honor-bound, just to regale in the glow of Jesse Buckley's. Does it have been a kingdom in you, sir? My father's a Kerimian from North Kerrie, and really proud of it. So Jesse, you know, Bono Bronte-Marcaquet, a rare in LA, so, Mahu. It's probably too late at this stage, but I think I know who they'll have here, Mark, for the Grand Marshal of the Colarni parade next year. That is for sure, no weld doctor. And tonight I'm going to the cinnamon, Ennis OK, and people get out and support that cinnamon because what's on tonight, the bride? I'm going to my good friend Paul Quinn would one in, and we're going to break our lint and fest and eat sweets. For a play, and he's even, I think he's gotten ahead of the game. There he's brought some sweets in already, so which is great to see.

5:05Look, this idea, this initiative we discover, Ennis, when I was reading about it in New York coming in, I thought John's going to be a big fan of this. Anything that will bring more people into the town, not just bring them in, but keep them there and encourage them. Persuade them to put their hands into their pockets. Has got to be good. It is, you know, and I kind of really, I'd give total credit to Councillor Beshiv Bak, or Beshiv Bak, or excuse me. She has a good idea. We've been talking about this idea for years to make more parking available and free parking available. And all you're trying to do is you're trying to add a certain kind of, you've a lot of bulls and you'll quiver arrows and you'll quiver and you want to kind of use them and get people into town. No, getting people into town and getting to the spend of two totally different things. And maybe can you give us a sense as a retailer, and what has it been like over the past while, obviously, you know, the public or any more generation works was difficult for retailers. It's definitely the sense you got from you and others for some time, but they're done and the town is looking well.

6:06But have you seen a number of spending recover after that or has it been quiet? What's been like so far in 2026? I haven't really, it hasn't kind of manifested yet in people's spending lots. And I think there are certain obstacles, I suppose psychological obstacles, you have to get over. We've had the last five years of regeneration starting with laneways and then going on to the street regeneration. And that's brilliant. I really adore it, okay. But it's suppose what's happened over the years is that people, it's become fossilized and ingrained in people's minds psychologically, that anus is not open. You know, for five years, you become conditioned into believing, well, I'm not going near that place. It's a disaster, okay. So I think it's very important that people like myself come on, people from the exec of the command and say, anus is open, anus is a beautiful place. So please come in, dip your hands in your pockets and spend freely. And one of the things you've talked about quite a bit with us, probably more than you wanted, is parking.

7:06So this suggestion of reparking and counselling car parks on Saturdays for a trial period. What can a difference with this make in terms of attracting more people into the town? And addressing the issue you've just highlighted there. I think it's very important, because again, we've been talking at Noz even about this apartheid of business opportunity. And that apartheid is that we do business in town, but there's a positive parking in town. Now, with this new initiative, this idea that's been put forward by Councillor Bashar Baker, I think it's a fantastic idea because it'll encourage people to know that if you come into town, you'll have parking maybe in Orozquan-Thinklor, or in Drombigil or in a different kind of place of the boys' national school. And that hopefully will draw people in and just let them regale in the fact that Ennis is there, Ennis is full of business, Ennis is full of amazing, like anybody who comes from outside Ennis just looks at this town and say, oh my god, you've got such a gem. And it is a gem of a town, but sometimes it's important that the people from the locality

8:06become invested in the future of the town. If you don't come into town, if you don't take this kind of parking thing into mind, and don't come into town, you are not investing in the future of the town. And if you don't invest in the future of, we'll say the business side of the town, the town will die as an entity because the town cannot survive without the core function which is business. Music is your livelihood. Costi's a core, so the proposal includes music over public speakers, live, trad musicians, perform in places like the town square, who knows if they're stuck for an inch or two, they might pop into a bayonet. What, that kind of festival atmosphere, John, it strikes me that that would be brilliant. Having that kind of stuff on a regular basis is just, you know, put a smile on your face wandering around the town. I'm sure you get the two thumbs up from you. It does, without doubt. No, I'm not a major fan of pipe music because I think it's a kind of, it's forcing a menu on you. And I think sometimes it's not.

9:07I think it's much better than trying to get people in, maybe have some buskers here and there, okay? Within reason now, maybe another little sore point I have is buskers with serious amplification. I don't think a good busker needs any amplification. You don't want too many of them with amps that are too big. You don't really, okay, like 10 people in one street, it just doesn't work, okay? But I suppose the whole idea of getting a certain kind of festive atmosphere into town is great. And what you want really is in is to magnetize people into the town. And you can do that in very a lot of different ways. Now, in fairness, the executive are breaking their back sides to just to be respectful, to be corporate, to be helpful. So they're given every opportunity. And that is a serious change from the previous crowd of reprobates who are there, okay? And ensure that Dennis was going to die a death. The new people are good, okay? And I really, I can speak positively enough about them because what the other crowd didn't have, they didn't have respect for people who knew how the town exists or how the town operates.

10:09That's business people and locals. So we have positives, okay? We have a lot of obstacles, okay? But you can get over those with that positivity. I always look at Dennis and say, it's a gem of a place. It's a built, it's got built of spirit. As you said, it's got personality and character. So why not dingleize it? I go down to dingle, I say I'm happy, Karim, and very proud of it. Dingle has a festival every second weekend. Dingle is in middle of nowhere. I mean, if you want to get the dingle, you have to travel seriously out of your way. And we think, Karim, it's a bit of a barrier. Even within Karim, it is okay. So how do they give that package, okay? And what I'm thinking, we... Sure, the food fighters there recently. Yeah, the food fighters, they grow there. That's how attractive a destination it is. It is, we'll take anyone, okay? And I suppose what's coming from the council as well is more money being pumped into festivals than Dennis. And I think if you have a lot of people coming into town, it will generally lift all boats as a girls business, and as a girls community, and people getting the idea that,

11:10quite a lot of people coming in here, this town is beautiful and is well worth taking care of. Margaret says, Texas, no, it's 618, 196, forcing. Will this system work in supermarket car parks? That's where most of the booths of space has occurs, that's in relation to the chance that we were having earlier on with Tom O'Cala, and you can keep your messages coming in on that, or indeed on anything on today's show. We'd love to hear from people on this rediscovering, and as an initiative, if it is music to your ears, John certainly sounds like it is to yours, and be interested to see, I suppose now how long it takes to implement it. It is, I suppose, things don't happen overnight, okay? And I suppose it's like a seed, you have to nurture a seed, okay? But I think it's a good place to start from, to have lots of people aligning together in a spirit of cooperation. You have no kind of, like before, we used to have disparate views, okay? And you had a lot of psych-offense who had a narrative about a certain thing, okay? We don't have that now. We have a lovely little commune of people who are really into doing the best that they can do for Ennis,

12:12and that's really positive. If you start like that, it will develop into something very meaningful. Okay, interesting to see, if and when it comes in, but chair of Retailers Venice, John O'Connor, thank you very much. Thank you very much for coming into studio.