Dear Minister Burke,
My name is Katie Murphy and I am co-owner of Wolfhound Fitness – a gym based in your home town of Mullingar. We opened Wolfhound Fitness in July 2016, and over the past 8 years we have supported hundreds of local people in their quest to improve their health, their fitness and indeed their physical and mental well-being through group exercise and social connection.
Throughout these 8 years we have also dealt with significant economic challenges – prolonged business closures during the Covid-19 pandemic, the profound effect of inflation, cost of living crisis and indeed the soaring operational costs and expenses associated with running a business in Ireland.
That being said, we absolutely love what we do, we are incredibly passionate about health, fitness & longevity and seeing first hand, the positive impact our services have on our members lives makes it an incredibly rewarding business to operate.
We want to do more; we need to do more.
However, business owners can only get so far on ‘passion’ – like many industries, we are finding it increasingly challenging to identify ways in which we can make this business more sustainable, how can we continue to grow and increase our impact on the people of Mullingar, while navigating economic and commercial challenges.
There is irrefutable evidence for the urgent need to increase physical activity levels in Ireland. Obesity levels are among the highest and physical activity levels are among the lowest in Europe and although our population is living longer, it is not necessarily in better health.
We need political support, we need to see progressive policies being put in place, prioritised and driven by the political leaders to see any meaningful impact on the population-based health of our country.
Gyms, coaches, health care professionals are a central part of the solution;
We are a very real, very practical solution for people - your constituents.
We believe it is time that the Irish government stands up to recognises this industry as the powerful resource that it is and listen to representatives from the Irish Physical Activity Alliance (IPAA).
The proposed VAT increase on gym memberships is a direct contradiction to current healthcare policies, including the Healthy Ireland Strategy, the National Physical Activity Action Plan, and Healthy Aging initiatives. And although Fine Gael’s commitment and support to implementing a tax rebate for gym memberships is strongly supported, this proposed VAT increase would offset any benefits to the Irish population by forcing gyms to raise their prices, making them less accessible.
We are supporting the IPAA’s call to reverse any proposed VAT increase on gym members - as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment we ask you to stand with, and support the IPAA and its’ members - committing to developing and implementing progressive policies to strengthen & increase the impact that the fitness industry has on the health of our population.
I would be happy to meet with you to discuss this in more detail,
Kind regards,
Katie