Outgoing M&S chairman Sir Stuart Rose has used a recent visit to Dublin to confirm the retailer's commitment to the crisis-ridden country.
Speaking at a business conference on the same day as the EU/IMF team arrived in the Irish capital to negotiate a bail-out for the troubled economy last week, Sir Stuart told delegates that M&S would remain in Ireland for the long haul and continue to invest in the country.
M&S, which has just opened its 21st Irish store at Douglas in Cork, had been in the Republic for 32 years, he said, and had invested 250m in the past five years. "We are a long-term business," he said. "We, along with many of you, have seen worse. We were here in the 1980s when tax was at 60%.
"This hopefully short-term squeeze is real, and it hurts, but I'm sure Ireland will be fine, that it will end up with a solution."
The Business in the Community forum, at the recently redeveloped Aviva stadium, was one of Rose's last public engagements as M&S chairman before he retires at the end of the year.
He joked he would be sitting by the phone in January, waiting for job offers. "First, I'm going to download my brain of M&S stuff," he said. "I'm going to Australia to watch the fifth Ashes test with my son. Then I'll come back around 20 January and wait for the phone to ring."
Meanwhile, the Irish minimum wage, at 8.65 an hour the second-highest in the Eurozone, is to be one of the first casualties of the EU/IMF austerity package, with finance minister Brian Lenihan due to announce a reduction in next month's budget.
Speaking at a business conference on the same day as the EU/IMF team arrived in the Irish capital to negotiate a bail-out for the troubled economy last week, Sir Stuart told delegates that M&S would remain in Ireland for the long haul and continue to invest in the country.
M&S, which has just opened its 21st Irish store at Douglas in Cork, had been in the Republic for 32 years, he said, and had invested 250m in the past five years. "We are a long-term business," he said. "We, along with many of you, have seen worse. We were here in the 1980s when tax was at 60%.
"This hopefully short-term squeeze is real, and it hurts, but I'm sure Ireland will be fine, that it will end up with a solution."
The Business in the Community forum, at the recently redeveloped Aviva stadium, was one of Rose's last public engagements as M&S chairman before he retires at the end of the year.
He joked he would be sitting by the phone in January, waiting for job offers. "First, I'm going to download my brain of M&S stuff," he said. "I'm going to Australia to watch the fifth Ashes test with my son. Then I'll come back around 20 January and wait for the phone to ring."
Meanwhile, the Irish minimum wage, at 8.65 an hour the second-highest in the Eurozone, is to be one of the first casualties of the EU/IMF austerity package, with finance minister Brian Lenihan due to announce a reduction in next month's budget.
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