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‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free’, so says the inscription on the Statue of Liberty. So too should say the welcome sign on the Cloughue Bridge roundabout just off the Dublin Road- where the not so poor but tired and huddled masses of the South catch their first glimpse of the shopping Mecca that is Newry.

Newry has always been open for business when it comes to welcoming Southern customers.  As far back as 2002 when the Town’s business community decided to ensure that the region would be dual currency – Newry has not looked back.

But if Brian Lenihan, the beleaguered Irish Finance Minister could get away with it he would bring back border controls and who could blame him. Irish taxpayers and more likely, the well off recipients of the one of the most generous welfare systems in Western Europe are voting with their wallets and handbags.  They are escaping their perceived financial penury in the Republic and are coming North in their legions. Despite the UK VAT rate returning to 17.5% in January and the Southern VAT rate being reduced by a paltry 0.5%, it’s going to be business as usual in Newry this weekend.

The canny southern shoppers who have been flooding places like Newry, Strabane, Enniskillen and Derry have discovered that over a wide range of consumer goods that Northern prices are on average running at 20-25% less than similar product ranges in the Republic.  It’s even cheaper to get a haircut in the North as was pointed out by the UK Observer.

Whinging Southern Irish shop-owners have been literally ‘raking it in’ during the good years and were quietly ramping up their margins on non discerning customers when the Euro was flowing as freely as the Liffey.

Today’s announcement that  the Irish Government is to reduce the amount of Excise duty on beer, wine and spirits is underwhelming from a consumer point of view and Sainbury’s -Beer, Wine, Spirits departments  will have little to fear as bus loads  of liquor are likely to continue to be transported across the border for Christmas and New Year Festivities.

Minister Lenihan has tried to inject a bit of patriotism into his budget by aping the British car scrappage scheme but a glance across the Quays Car park suggests there won’t be many downsizing from their Shoguns and Mercedes  to Ka’s and Skodas to take him up on the offer.

Basically austere as the Irish budget is- even people on Irish Welfare  have twice as much money in their pockets as their Northern counter-parts and as one UK retailer says ‘ every little helps’ – especially in a recession.  The Retail Industry in the Republic wanted to Minister to drastically reduce the VAT rate to make them more competitive with the North but the retail deficit in the South is not just about VAT rates- it’s also about currency exchange and retail competitiveness. The Minister can do little about the strength of the Euro and he can do even less with about retail competitiveness.  The Irish consumer has awoken to a more competitive Northern retail offer and the landscape both physically and politically has changed beyond recognition since the last invasion of Southern shoppers.

While Irish taxpayers may have few less Euro in their pockets for the foreseeable future; the reality remains the same – they have to find the best value for those Euro and for the present that offer remains in Newry and other border towns.  The Minister has started an economic claw back in an attempt to keep shoppers at home in the medium term he will find that no-one is willing to listen. If Irish Trade Unions continue with their industrial action more and more Southern shoppers will use Northern Ireland as a welcome escape route from the gloom and doom peddlers blocking their High Streets.

The net effects of the Irish Budget will continue to insulate the Border regions from the full impact of the UK recession but as the full import of the British Chancellors attacks on the public sector take full effect, it’s the heavily dependent Northern Ireland public sector will feel the pain. And that may well give many Newry residents who are dependent on the public sector for employment great cause for concern. Recessions tend to provide poor havens for patriotism as pragmatism takes priority. Who knows with 20% reduction in salary under way…perhaps Brian Lenihan’s ‘Merc’  could be in a Quays parking bay by Christmas eve!