Christmas won"t come early for Mullingar

There are no current plans to follow the capital and launch Christmas early in Mullingar, president of the Mullingar Chamber of Commerce Paul O"Brennan has said.The idea, which it is hoped will boost trade in Dublin, was discussed with the town"s traders but because of the Joe Dolan weekend, which kicks off on December 5, the local business community decided that they could afford to hold off on an early start to the festive season.'We did talk about it but we weren"t sure what real value it would have and there is the fact that we are all still hopeful that this Christmas won"t be a total disaster: we think the downturn in trade will be minimal,' said Mr O"Brennan.'People with young children still have to do Santa of course and we expect that the Joe Dolan weekend will have a huge impact on the overall trade for Christmas.'Everyone is sort of just expecting a lull in business and I would imagine that as money is quite tight that people might be more sensible this year than they have been in Christmases past.'But I am quietly confident that Mullingar will do okay and we are working on plans to make sure that some of the money that is spent over the first weekend in December will come back to the town.'For example we could sell people Chamber vouchers through the hotels and in conjunction with businesses they would get a percentage off when they use them. Or another idea is to give people a Chamber voucher back when they have spent so much. That way they will have to come back to Mullingar to spend it. The Chamber of Commerce makes no profit out of this: it"s all about getting money into the town and keeping it here.'