Wetherspoon pubs in Ireland 'traded well through Christmas but faced significant costs'   

'A high level of interest' in the four Irish pubs Wetherspoons put up for sale last year, Tim Martin, founder and chairman of the pubs group, tells the Irish Examiner 

Founder and chairman of Wetherspoons Tim Martin: Wetherspoon is seeking buyers for pubs based in Waterford, Galway, Carlow, as well as the Linen Weaver in Cork.

Wetherspoons across Ireland traded well through Christmas, but the business weathered a "significant inflation in costs" in line with other hospitality businesses here, Tim Martin, founder and chairman of the pubs group has said. 

The remarks come as the pubs group said in an update it was on course to meet earnings expectations in its financial year despite facing a rise in costs across the 814 pubs it has in Britain and Ireland.

There was "a high level of interest" in the four Irish pubs Wetherspoons put up for sale late last year, and the group will update investors in due course, Mr Martin told the Irish Examiner.

Wetherspoons is seeking buyers for pubs based in Waterford, Galway, Carlow, as well as the Linen Weaver in Cork. The group in recent years had spent a total of €49m on its premises at Keavan's Port Hotel on Camden Street in Dublin, at South Strand close to Grand Canal Dock, and at Wetherspoons in Waterford.   

The Irish pubs posted increased sales as experienced by its premises in the UK, but faced "significant inflation in costs, as others report, also in Ireland", Mr Martin said. 

Total sales in Britain and Ireland in the 25 weeks to late this month rose by just over 10% from a year earlier, on a like-for-like basis. 

Bar sales rose by 11.8%, food sales were up by almost 8%, slot machine sales rose by 10.4%, and hotel room sales rose by over 3%, it said. 

Wetherspoons' shares, which have climbed in the past year, ended 1.5% lower in the latest trading session in London.