Lifting of Covid-19 restrictions welcomed by Carlow and Kilkenny businesses

From today bars and restaurants can return to normal trading hours and nightclubs which have a special exemption order to open late can do so.

The requirement for social distancing ended at 6am this morning along with capacity restrictions on live events.

Kilkenny publican Pat Crotty from Paris Texas is delighted with yesterdays announcement and says it will have a huge domino effect for many sectors:

“Our customers have not known what kind service we might be able to provide them in the last two years, our staff haven’t known when they’d have work or how much work or how many hours, our suppliers who are mostly Irish and in Kilkenny in a lot of cases too have suffered in the same way.”

“People forget that they are at the far end of the food chain in this too and have struggled and suffered, and musicians who provide the entertainment in all of the pubs and places around.”

“There’s a huge domino effect to this, its not just about the pubs or just about being able to go out for a meal as lots of people are all felling really good after yesterdays announcement.”

Meanwhile, the President of the Carlow Chamber of Commerce Colin Duggan says he was surprised by the speed of the easing of restrictions announced yesterday:

“We made our own plans here that we’re prepared for a plan where we would comeback at different timetable with restrictions lifted over a couple of months and not over one night.”

“I’m delighted to see that its happened in this way in that now we can just get back to work and start looking at a very positive future.”