Hairdresser Lisa Eccles says this year will be the first time in 15 years that her hair and beauty salon in Kilmainham in Dublin will not have made a profit.
Eccles, the owner of Zinc on the South Circular Road, says she has lost about €17,000 in the past year due to increasing energy bills and rising wage costs.
“I’m working at a loss now,” she says. “And I run a tight ship, a very tight business.”
Eccles, from Palmerstown and also the president of the Irish Hairdressers Federation, is standing in her salon on a bright but chilly November morning as customers go about getting their hair cut and nails done.
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With just days out from the general election, Eccles, who would have traditionally been a Fine Gael supporter, says she doesn’t know who she will vote for.
She describes the party’s pledge to lower the VAT rate for the hospitality industry to 11 per cent in its election manifesto as “frustrating”.
“We’ve only just come out of a budget where they haven’t given us anything,” she says.
“I think it’s a very cynical ploy from them to hold back on giving small businesses a bit of something which would have helped them through what’s been a really difficult year. To hold that back as an election tactic, I think it’s actually disgraceful.”
Eccles adds there are certain parties she would not vote for, such as Aontú, and that she has been impressed with the Social Democrats and its leader Holly Cairns.
“As for Sinn Féin, as much as you would love to see something different, they would be even worse for business,” she says.
“I think they would go after the multinationals and we would just be collateral damage. So then it’s do you leave it with better the devil you know than the devil you don’t?”
Also undecided is customer Cepta Sheppard (64), from Co Meath, who too would have typically voted for Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil in the past. She raises the issues of health, in particular the new children’s hospital and homelessness.
“I’m hearing there will be so many Independents and I’m worried,” she says. “Like what can Independents actually do? They’re going to align themselves with one party or another. Do I particularly want an Independent if they’re going to go with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil?
“I’m really on the fence. I would like to say I would give Sinn Féin a vote but I think personally, they would actually bankrupt the country because they have these crazy ideas.”
Amyleigh O’Neill (28), a hair stylist in the salon, says she will be voting for Independent Alan Edge in her constituency of Dublin South-West.
O’Neill, from Tallaght, says she knows Edge personally and has canvassed for him in the past, while her grandfather is south Dublin county councillor Mick Duff, also an Independent.
She says housing is her biggest priority and that she will give her second and third preference votes to Sinn Féin candidates.
“I’m still living at home,” she says. “I’m single and there’s absolutely no prospect of me being able to buy a house, even renting. I’m earning a decent living but there’s no way I could afford to pay €2,000 for rent.
“I have one friend that has bought a house, that’s it ... and she got it in a private sale from someone in the area and it needs 101 million things to be done to it.”
Another customer, Aoife Doyle (26) from Wexford, has completed a PhD in clinical microbiology and says her concerns are around housing, education and emigration.
“Everyone my age is gone, because they can’t afford to live here,” she says. “There’s no tax breaks either for young people to live here.”
Doyle says she is might vote for an Independent candidate but admits “they’re not great in terms of forming a coalition”.
She adds while her local TDs Paul Kehoe and James Browne have “done a lot” to help farmers in her county, she prefers to focus on matters “countrywide”.
Jenny Boyle (50), receptionist at the salon, says she has “voter lethargy” and that she doesn’t see any “huge differences any more” between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
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Boyle, who is from Ashtown in west Dublin, says she will probably give her first preference to Solidarity’s Ruth Coppinger.
“I would love to see Sinn Féin get in though,” she adds. “I think we need a shake-up. I think Pearse Doherty is good on finance but I just don’t know overall. I’m still that little bit scared about their lack of experience. I will probably would give them my number two.”
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