'There are pubs that closed last night that will never reopen again'

Pub chiefs are meeting with the bosses of the three main banks in the coming days and are reaching out for similar meetings with the vulture funds as they seek emergency measures over publicans’ loans to help to ensure more businesses do not go under amid the Covid-19 lockout.

Donal O’Keeffe, chief executive of the Licensed Vintners Association — the LVA — which represents 550 pubs and 12,500 pub staff of a total 50,000 pub workers in the Republic who have been laid off since the weekend — said they need to strike agreements with the CEOs of AIB, Bank of Ireland, and Ulster Bank to see “how we can work together through this unprecedented, unplanned, and almost unforeseeable scenario”.