Hospitality venues in the Republic of Ireland will be required to close at Midnight from Thursday 18th November
Government in the Republic of Ireland today announced a new enforced closing time for hospitality, amid climbing Covid-19 infection rates and growing pressure on the Republic’s heath service.
Pubs, bars, nightclubs, and restaurants will be required to close at midnight, starting on Thursday this week, just four weeks after the previous curfew was lifted. The government have also called for a return to home-working, beginning this Friday, and expanded the requirement for customers to show Covid passes when entering indoor hospitality to include cinemas and theatres.
Coming in the run-up to Christmas, the new curfew represents a severe blow to an already fragile industry, and trade bodies are calling for government to immediately resume Covid support measures for the late night sector, with Donall O’Keeffe, chief executive of the Licensed Vintners Association, quoted in the Irish News as saying: “Effectively, this latest announcement means that the current Government strategy isn’t working. We were told that if we waited until the majority of the public was vaccinated we would be able to get back to trading. Well, we waited and that wasn’t enough. Like the rest of the country, of course we are conscious of the worsening health situation. But this will still be really hard news for those working in the sector to take.”
Further announcements, possibly containing new guidance on face masks and social distancing, are expected in the coming days.