An apology from German supermarket Lidl to customers in Midleton over its failure to close its local branch during the funeral of Robert Holohan has received a mixed response.
Lidl remained open when virtually every other business in Midleton closed from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, January 15th - the day of Robert's funeral.
Many locals were deeply upset by Lidl's decision.
On Saturday, the German discount store issued an apology and accepted it had failed to appreciate the mood in the town following Robert's death.
"The staff and management of Lidl would like to express their sincere sympathy to the Holohan family. By remaining open on Saturday, it was not our intention to be disrespectful in any way," said Lidl.
"We apologise to anyone who may have been offended by our action." The statement was posted at the entrance to the Midleton store this Saturday.
Local businessman Mr Brendan Barry of East Cork Travel, who called to all businesses in the town on the day before Robert's funeral to ask them to close as a mark of respect, said he welcomed the apology.
"The general feeling I get in Midleton is that people feel that Lidl made a mistake by not closing but they've apologised for it and we have to take that apology at face value - whether it was prompted by people staying away from shopping there, I can't say.
"For most people in Midleton, I think the scale of the tragedy was so enormous that they just want to try and get back to normal as soon as they can and while they think it was a mistake and insensitive by Lidl, they think it was only a small part of the whole tragedy.
"There are probably some people who won't shop there again but I expect many people will go back," Mr Barry said.
However, Mayor of Midleton Cllr Ted Murphy said that Lidl's apology had only gone a small way towards making up for the upset.
"I think it's only gone a small way. They were asked to close along with everybody else and they decided not to.
"I think if a foreign company comes in here, they should abide by the local wishes and that was that businesses would close for a couple of hours.They could have done that but they didn't.
"I've had lots of people telling me how disappointed they were at Lidl - whether people will stop shopping there or not, I don't know, but their car park looked a lot slacker to me this week than it normally is," Cllr Murphy said.
It is understood that the decision by Lidl not to close the Midleton store for Robert's funeral was made at corporate headquarters rather than by local management in the Co Cork town.
Staff in the Midleton store had privately expressed their sympathies over the tragedy.
