No mentioning the 'R" word in Athboy!

A few weeks ago, as Ireland was submerged in an avalanche of bad economic news, Athboy-based businessman Billy Foley decided to act - he banned all negative talk about the recession in his car parts business in the town. His business partner Eamonn Mahon agreed with the approach. For weeks, Foley felt people seemed to talk about nothing else but the deteriorating economic conditions. Terms like 'credit crunch,' 'meltdown,' 'slowdown,' toxic debt' and 'toxic assets' filled the airwaves and thousands of column inches in newspapers. They swirled around like snowflakes in a winter storm, covering the streets and countryside in a blanket of gloom and Foley felt strongly it was time to do something about it. Along with Mahon, Willie Murphy and Louise Cahill, Foley runs BMF Auto Parts in Athboy, supplying garages and other outlets as well as selling directly from their Connacht Street outlet. With more than 25 years" experience in business, Foley has learned some useful lessons along the way and one of them is value of positive thinking. He felt the first place to start was in his own working environment where he constantly comes in contact with the public. He felt there was too much talk about the downturn and some decisive action needed to be taken. 'We don"t allow it. If anyone starts to talk negatively about how bad things are, we say, 'listen, this is a very rich country, we"re going to get out of this, we just have to work our way through it and it"s only positive stuff in here",' he said. 'If people are listening to all the negative vibes on TV and the radio morning, noon and night, it is bound to have an effect. People can talk themselves into a recession, they can talk themselves into bad health with stress. 'We"re only a small business, there"s four of us here and we"re fighting tooth and nail to keep the four us in employment. We start in the morning and ask 'Where can we sell today?" 'What can we sell today?" and try to help the customers. For instance, if we have a new clutch in, we still want to sell good brands, good quality stuff but we make three or four prices for people. We"re all working a little bit harder and thinking of innovative ways of supplying a good product at a good price.' While he attended school in Athboy and has ran a business the town since the early 1980s, Foley lives just inside the Westmeath border on the road to Clonmellon. Recently his father Tadhg passed away in his eighties. As a farmer he appreciated the value of hard work and sailed through many recessions. Married to Vivienne with three sons, Billy Foley is a former chairman of the Westmeath Hurling Board and is currently involved in the development of Gaelic games in the Lake County. He feels sport has a big part to play in helping the Irish emerge from the latest economic storm to hit the country. 'Look at the rugby team, look at Bernard Dunne. How many times they did look like they were going to lose, beaten, finished? They didn"t lie down, they just kept going.' Charting a course through some turbulent economic waters is something Foley - and many of his generation who are still in business - know plenty about. He recalls the 1980s when Ireland was compared to a third world country and when young people headed to America or Britain in droves. Then a single man, he had his own business up and running by that stage and he was determined to stay in the game despite the bad days - and there was a few of those. 'On several occasions in the 1980s, I was nearly heading for the boat. I remember on particular day I drove 200 miles and I didn"t even sell one oil filter and I said 'that"s it, I"m going". The next day was good and I managed to keep it going and economic conditions were then a hell of a lot worse. The motor parts business anyway was a lot worse in the mid-1980s than conditions are today,' he recalls. Partly because he felt it would improve his business and partly because of a long-established interest in South American culture and sport, Foley learned Spanish. He now imports parts from Argentina and has visited the country on a number of occasions. During one of those visits in 2001, the Argentinians were also experiencing an economic crisis of 1929 proportions. Their currency had by that stage been devalued by 75 per cent and poverty was endemic. The Argentines eventually emerged from their dramatic downturn by devaluing its currency, the peso, although that is not now an option for an Ireland entrenched in the eurozone. The recession is not the only obstacle Irish business has to deal with, he says. There are other issues that need to be dealt with to help small firms flourish. 'There seems to be more and more bureaucracy about different issues, we have to deal with more and more government departments. The VAT rate of 21.5 per cent in this country is absolutely ludicrous. If we"re 21.5 per cent this side of the border and it"s 15 per cent the other side of the border, then straight away you"re at a 6.5 per cent disadvantage. 'Costs are very high in this country. Most things are much more expensive here than they are in other jurisdictions. In Argentina in 2001, their currency was so highly valued they could export nothing. Now we"re in the same situation because the cost of just about everything is too high.' The dedication and commitment of the people involved in BMF Auto Parts, he adds, is helping to ensure the firm is sturdy enough to see out the economic storm. Over the past 10 years Eamonn Mahon has played an intergral part in running the business, managing the outlet on Connacht Street and dealing with the public on a day -to-day basis. Mahon has also been closely involved in running the local soccer club. An downturn can be an opportunity for those in the auto parts business. It"s one of the positives Foley, Mahon, Murphy, Cahill & Co are eager to focus in on as they wage their particular war against recession. Only don"t mention the 'R" word when they"re around!