‘It was a massive honour to get the Business of the Year’ Award
By Aideen O'Flaherty
A TALLAGHT business that diversified its offering in the wake of the pandemic, and tilted to focusing on producing hand sanitisers and hand sanitiser stands, said that being crowned Business of the Year at last year’s Tallaght Person of the Year Awards was “a massive honour”.
Tallaght Powder Coating, which was started by Andy and Margaret Dowdall in their small workshop in Bohernabreena in 1985 and later moved to a larger premises in Ballymount Industrial Estate, recently found out that they will hold the title for another year as the awards for 2020 have been cancelled.
Suzanne and Jeff from Tallaght Powder Coating
However, in what has turned out to be an unprecedented year, the company has changed to meet demand during the pandemic and are proud to be able to continue as Business of the Year through 2021.
While Tallaght Powder Coating’s day-to-day business consists of painting metals, like windows, doors, bikes, and alloy wheels, this ground to a halt when the pandemic hit back in March, as they were deemed a non-essential service.
The family business, which is now run by Andy and Margaret’s children, Suzanne, Michelle and Andrew, then started manufacturing sanitising units with and without sanitisers – and has continued to do so for the past nine months, alongside powder coating services.
Jeff Bibby from Tallaght Powder Coating told The Echo: “When Covid came along, we had a dilemma that a lot of businesses had – we were asking if we were essential.
“We were facing uncertainty, and what happened was that within three or four weeks we saw there was demand for hand sanitisers.”
Tallaght Powder Coating then teamed up with another family business, Lynam Engineering in Westmeath, to devise a prototype for hand sanitiser stands, which are now being used by many businesses both locally and nationally.
“We’ve supplied over 100 local businesses, and we’re so happy to help them and get them back open,” added Mr Bibby.
As for Tallaght Powder Coating itself, Mr Bibby said the business has gone from having to lay off its staff in March to now having nine full-time staff, and is going from strength to strength and is still a firm part of the community.
“It was a massive honour to get the Business of Year Award last year,” said Mr Bibby.
Liz Kennedy, voluntary chairperson of TCC, said: “Tallaght Powder Coating straight away did something new and were very innovative when we were all in the middle of a crisis.
“We recognise how much Tallaght Powder Coating cares about the community, and how they pivoted their business.”
In the absence of this year’s event TCC is encouraging members of the community to virtually present a Certificate of Appreciation by email or by tagging their unsung hero or group on social media using the hashtag #OurHeroesYourChoice.
The certificate is available to download at
http://echo.ie/CertificateOfAppreciation.pdf and you can email it to your chosen hero.
Visit the Tallaght Community Council Facebook page or Twitter account for further details on its #OurHeroesYourChoice initiaitve.
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