Now this could be the date we dine indoors...
Indoor dining set for return this month
INDOOR dining will reopen before the end of the month for vaccinated patrons, ending the uncertainty for the hospitality industry.
Antigen testing is also likely to be used to access dining in the weeks after this initial reopening.
Senior Government sources told the Irish Daily Mail that there was still a potential to reopen on July 19, the same day non-essential international travel returns.
This is the preferred date by the hospitality industry, who have insisted it would be ridiculous for someone to be able to fly to Spain and eat in a restaurant but not be allowed into their local pub.
However, senior sources told the Irish Daily Mail that if this date could not be met, July 26 would be the latest the reopening was happening. ‘We expect it to be sometime between the 19th and 26th,’ the source said.
‘Antigen testing is untried’
Government and the hospitality sector will meet again today as they finalise the reopening plan.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly and Minister for Tourism Catherine Martin all took part in the initial meeting with the Hospitality and Tourism Forum as political pressure to get the sector open mounted.
The Government expects only fully vaccinated people to be able to avail of indoor dining initially.
Weeks later people who are not vaccinated will be able to access indoor dinning, and other services, if they provide a negative PCR or antigen test. ‘It’s easier if we don’t allow tested people, initially anyway. PCR [test] capacity is limited and expensive. Antigen [testing] is untried but pharmacists will be able to do it in time,’ the source said.
The use of antigen testing in hospitality has not been advocated by the National Public Health Emergency Team. Using it in conjunction with the vaccine certificate is deemed to be a compromise.
Rural Independent TD Danny Healy-Rae said he would ‘certainly not’ be asking his staff in his pub to ask customers for vaccine passports for indoor hospitality. The Kerry publican, who runs Healy-Rae’s Bar in Kilgarvan, said that while business owners ‘have to be careful’ when it comes to running their business, he doesn’t approve of a vaccine pass being introduced. ‘That might apply in places where they have maybe 1000 or more visitors coming in... But in a rural country pub, like mine, I don’t think it’s necessary when there’s six or ten people coming in of a night,’ he told reporters yesterday. ‘I don’t approve of it and I don’t think I’ll be doing it at all,’ he added. The move also angered Independent TD Mattie McGrath who accused the Government of using the reopening to ‘frighten’ people into taking the vaccine. Independent TD Carol Nolan hit out at the
Government for not supporting hospitality businesses and described Mr Martin as ‘the most weak, inept and feeble Taoiseach that this country has ever had’. The Laois-Offaly TD said: ‘They’ve left them high and dry and they’re now making them feel that they have a responsibility or a role to play. They don’t – their role is to make sure their premises is safe and they are doing that.’
Meanwhile, after downpours in recent days restaurant owners have reported that some patrons have reverted to their old, prepandemic ways – not showing up and not cancelling in advance.
Michael Coyne from Coyne’s Gastro Pub in Connemara, Galway, told RTÉ’s Claire Byrne yesterday: ‘It is fairly annoying. When you are running a tight ship like we do here, if you lose a booking, it causes undue pressure and stress.’
But Claire Nash from Nash 19 in Cork said that by calling the customers the morning of their booking, they almost always turn up. She said: ‘We are taking deposits and a diary system, and it all seems to be going OK. ’