“Inadequate” and “disappointing” is how a local publican has described the government package of supports.
16 million euro was announced for pubs that don’t serve food, and nightclubs yesterday evening.
It includes a re-start grant of up to €35,000.
However, Richie Gleeson of Gleeson’s pub in Clonmel says it really doesn’t amount to anything for businesses like his, which might have to stay closed for the rest of the year:
“No, it’s not going to support anyone. I was at a meeting last night in Thurles with three other publicans – a very small meeting just to discuss other discussions we’ve had with VFI members in our area.
“The crux of that conversation is that none of us can survive on that. The one little thing that we were hoping for was that they would uphold the support payments to ourselves and they haven’t even given us that.”
Continuing, Richie said that he and others in his industry were “bewildered” by the fact that they have to remain closed.
Questions have also been raised on a national level about why off-licences are allowed to continue operating, given the rise in house-party clusters.
And Richie says he can’t see why his sector is being vilified:
“We’re kind of saying that if NPHET and the government have made the decision that alcohol is the problem here with COVID-19 and alcohol spreads COVID-19, well then deal with that.
“Ban alcohol completely. Do whatever you need to do in that sense, if that’s what you’re saying. But to be industry specific and to pull us all out… You know, they’ve split the pub trade in two – they call us ‘food pubs’ and ‘wet pubs’.
“They haven’t dealt with alcohol as a whole and they’ve allowed house parties to continue. And we’re constantly having the finger pointed at us as being the problem of it all and we’re not even open.”
