Business owners in Cork say the city will just be full of high-street chains if things don’t change.
More family owned stores and restaurants closed last year as owners struggled to keep up with the cost of rent, increase to minimum wage and stock prices.
Cork Business Association is calling on the Government to protect small traders.
Pat O’Connell of K O’Connell Fish in the English Market says local business owners are being pushed out:
"They're coming in with replacements for family business, and we're losing that magic in the city centre, because no matter what shopping centre you go to there all the same, there's a boringness about it if you want to put it bluntly, we don't have that in the city centre."
