One of the organisers said the hospitality industry will be “wiped out and decimated” if hotels are allowed to open first.
A group of restaurants and cafés are calling on the Government to allow a full reopening of the hospitality sector on 2 June.
The organisers are asking the Government to allow all hospitality to reopen on 2 June, alongside hotels and guest houses.
Under the current plans, restaurants and bars can resume outdoor dining from 7 June, meanwhile, no date has yet been set for the resumption of indoor dining, except for overnight guests of hotels.
A campaign on social media entitled “The Plan” is now calling on people to send a letter to their local TDs to encourage a speedier reopening of the sector.
The plan refers to the proposed extension of Part 3 of the Health Preservation and Protection and Other Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Act of 2020 which is set to be renewed next month.
The organisers also suggested hospitality being allowed to operate at a 50-60% capacity indoors for the month of June.
Paul Treyvaud, one of the organisers and owner of Treyvaud Restaurant told Newstalk Breakfast on Thursday that the tourism industry will be “wiped out and decimated” if hotels are allowed to reopen ahead of restaurants and other establishments.
“What we’re calling on is every single TD, every Senator, every Councillor is to not vote in favour of renewing this,” he said.
“The consequences if they do is that come next October, November, December, the tourism industry is going to be absolutely wiped out and decimated.
“We had no winter season, we’ve had no spring season, we’re going to have a very limited summer season.”
The restaurant owners said in the document that allowing some sectors to reopen before others would cause “detrimental and catastrophic consequences” for the industry.
“Allowing hotels to operate and facilitate indoor dining and drinking well before restaurants and bars will result in the Hotel sector gaining a very unfair advantage to the recruitment of an already decimated workforce and result in a next to impossible scenario for restaurants and bars to recruit this summer,” the letter reads.
“All we ask for is to be allowed open on the same date with the same guidelines. It is already very evident that most restaurants and bars have already lost a large percentage of their personnel to the hotel sector because of this.”
The group added that bars and restaurants being allowed to open if they are able to convert laneways into dining spaces with “fully covered roofing” is also not an acceptable solution as it would be unfair for establishments without the ability to provide outdoor options who would have to remain closed.
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