Safe and sound at home

WHILE people might not be shopping like they once did in Ennis, there was extra demand for one item in the run up to this month’s budget and it was more because of the economic circumstances than in spite of them.

Confidence in Irish financial institutions, and indeed the Government that has backed them, is at a low ebb and that sentiment seems to be central to an increase in pre-budget sales of safes in the county town.
Mary Keane of the Ennis Lock and Key shop said it is one area in which business has been quite brisk.
“There definitely has been an increase but it has come in phases. Before the budget, a few mornings the first person who came in would have been looking for a safe. We saw the same thing a few years ago when there was a scare with the banks. It has settled down again since the budget.”
She said buying safes is a rather personal matter and that people generally don’t want to engage in much conversation while buying them but that on occasion people had told her they require a safe because they have withdrawn their money. She also said the business is selling more key-operated safes than digital ones, which indicates they are more likely to be used for personal, rather than business, purposes.
Clare TD Timmy Dooley cautioned anyone against keeping large sums at home and said there is absolutely no risk involved in keeping money in Irish banks.
“It opens up a whole new vista of risk, with dangers of crime, of extortion and of kidnapping. The reality is that the banks have been guaranteed by the Irish State and by the EU and there is absolutely no risk,” he said.
Mr Dooley said people who withdraw their money to put it into foreign-owned banks are also misguided, as the guarantees surrounding the Irish ones are absolutely rock solid, which may not be the case with others.
Garda Superintendent Peter Duff also said that keeping money in the home is not a good idea.
“We would advise people not to have large amounts of cash in the home and to leave it in other institutions. We wouldn’t advise them to keep it at home,” he said.