No live or loud music will be allowed once indoor dining resumes in Carlow, Kilkenny and across the country

No live or loud music will be allowed once indoor dining resumes, under new guidelines published by Fáilte Ireland.

Customers must leave the restaurant or pub by 11.30 pm and only six people will be permitted per table, with children under 12 exempt.

A 105 minute time restriction will be in place per booking if there is one metre or less between tables.

Adrian Cummins from the Restaurants Association of Ireland feels the time limit will be an issue, saying Everything that we expected based on the media reports is in the guidelines, obviously, there will be issues around the 105 minutes for businesses, that this issue around the one metre, two metres, that is going to affect a substantial number of businesses”.

Pat Crotty of Kilkenny City’s Paris Texas says there’s also a strict interpretation of what qualifies for outdoors based on the smoking ban legislation.

He’s told KCLR News “An awful lot of the spaces that people presumed they were going to be able to use for outdoor space, and indeed that they used as outdoor space when we were at level 3 before and you only had outdoor drinking, they’ll all be illegal, you won’t be able to use any of them, so an awful lot of the people who thought they were going to be opening on June 7 are going to have to change all their plans again, either their properties or their facilities or their actual opening at all”.

More details here

Here’s what Carlow Kilkenny’s FG TD John Paul Phelan tweeted:

Read what locals expected here and here