The time limit for indoor dining is set to return when the hospitality sector fully reopens.
It’s one of a number of guidelines set to be issued by Failte Ireland this afternoon – these are expected to state that people can eat or drink for as long as they like outdoors but there will be a one hour and 45 minute limit indoors.
Tables will have to be one metre apart both indoor and outdoors.
The €9 substantial meal rule is also set to be scrapped.
Good ventilation is also set to form part of the measures.
Outdoor dining resumes June 7th while hotels can open June 2nd. An announcement will not be made until Friday regarding a date for dining and drinking inside, but it’s expected to be in late July.
Rafter Dempsey’s in Kilkenny is a pub that offers food and accommodation and Gerry Rafter says of the expected guidelines “We welcome that, being more than 15 months out of business it’s a timeline that we’ve been looking for and it gives us all hope that we can have some sort of semblance of a reasonable summer trade for hospitality and tourism”.
He does however wish that indoor offerings could come earlier than anticipated, telling KCLR News “Micheál Martin has poured a damp cloth on opening on the 1st of July which is what the VFI, the Vintner’s Federation of Ireland, had been calling for, in fairness to what had previously been called wet pubs, they had been closed for 15 months, they need a lifeline and they need it asap so I would back what Padraig Cribben of the VFI has asked for on the 1st of July”.
“It’s something we can live with, I appreciate outdoor is meant to be a lot more safe, we’re happy to get back indoors for dining and drinking even if it’s later in July rather than earlier July because we need it for the summer time that’s for sure”.
