Hair salon owner writes to First and Deputy First Minister after five weeks with no income

Mother of four, Eve Stevenson, who owns a salon in Portadown, said she and hundreds of other salon owners across Northern Ireland have yet to receive any government funding since the last directive by the government to close.

Eve says that she has been inundated with responses from salon owners and other self employed since posting about her upset at not having any income for the past five weeks.

“This is right here and now, real people, salon owners, small businesses with families to support, staff and bills to pay,” she said.

She called on First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill to help.

And she urged other salon owners to tag themselves on her Facebook post. So far scores of businesses have been in touch with the Portadown hairdresser.

“The list is continuing to grow,” said Eve who just opened her salon last May.

She explained that she shared her plight on social media and soon had a group of many other salon owners seeking advice from one another and searching for answers.

“When would we get a payment that was meant to take three weeks is now entering over five,” asked Eve.

“We have staff and bills to pay and £0 income. We can’t open our shops to earn. We all feel our questions are being ignored and all of us have been in touch with our local MP’s to find out but we are still waiting.

“It’s been five weeks of worry and sleepless nights.

“We all understand and want to do our bit during the pandemic but if we need to close for longer we are happy too but we need an income.

“So far we have received zero income

“With furlough on a lag of two weeks paying staff is also a big problem now for many businesses not just salons.

“I now have dance studios getting in touch also and I am sure many more industries are the same,” she said.

-

-

Hospital staff at breaking point, says union Read full story here

-

-

Thank you for reading this article. We’re more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by Coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

Please consider purchasing a copy of the paper. You can also support trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription of the News Letter.