DUNDALK Chamber of Commerce CEO Bill Tosh will be meeting with Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government John Gormley in the next week to lobby for a reduction of commerical rates in the town.

Mr Tosh has been one of the most outspoken critics of the current rates charged to Dundalk retailers in recent years and is adamant they must be reduced in order for business to survive in the town.

“The costs of doing business are too high at the moment,” said the Dundalk Chamber chief.

“People will come into the market if you make it attractive for them but it's just not attractive at the moment and the risks are too high.

“I'll be meeting with Minister Gormley next week and I'll be asking for an urgent re-rating of the whole town. We haven't had a re-rating since something like 1983 and what that means is that a shop here can cost up to 3,000 euro more than a shop of the exact same size in somewhere like Athlone.

“I was very impressed to here Fingal and South Dublin claiming they had secured a 20pc reduction in rates and we need to see that fairly quick here too.

“We can't afford the current rates we have if we want business to grow here and that's the bottom line,” he said.

Tosh welcomed the news that new shops were set to open on Clanbrassil Street in the coming weeks.

“It's good to see it because I walked the town about two weeks ago and I counted 82 for sale or to let signs between Newry Bridge and the Dundalk Shopping Centre.

“That's an exercise I do regularly but the amount of them was almost double what they would normally be,” he said.