“Impromptu house parties” with 11pm closing – RAI to meet Tánaiste

The Restaurants Association of Ireland’s Chief Executive Adrian Cummins is to meet with Tánaiste Leo Varadkar tomorrow afternoon following the recent announcement by Government that restaurants and pubs serving food must close at 11pm.

Among the items to be discussed will be the 11pm curfew and some outstanding issues such as the status of private bookings in all this.

Adrian Cummins hopes to put the many concerns of his members to the Tánaiste during the course of the meeting as well as the decision/rationale behind these new closing times which will make thousands of businesses unviable and place tens of thousands of jobs at risk, it states.

“With this new curfew, the Government has cut 90 to 150 minutes of trading time for restaurants who normally close at between Midnight and 1am,” stated the Association.

No prior discussion took place with the RAI before the announcement was made.

“This new 11pm curfew is a body-blow to the restaurant sector,” said Adrian Cummins who described the decision as bizarre and out of the blue, “Restaurants are now one of the safest social outlets in the country and by closing restaurants at 11pm it will drive people to impromptu house parties. The loss of an hour will be the difference to people making wrong decisions and will affect the economics of viable businesses. This announcement will have a serious impact for staycation businesses in Ireland.”