Kerry restaurateur: 'Absolute carnage this winter when so many will go bust'

Paul Treyvaud, owner of Treyvaud’s Restaurant in Killarney: “The biggest blow to my peers was hearing the Taoiseach repeatedly state that we were deemed nonessential." Picture: Sally MacMonagle

A Kerry restaurateur says his industry has been “tarnished with the blame” for the prevalence of Covid-19 in Ireland and must not “be used as scapegoats any longer”.

Paul Treyvaud, owner of Treyvaud’s Restaurant in Killarney, said that prior to Ireland’s second lockdown last October, many restaurants, including his own, decided to remain closed rather than risk the cost of a quick reopening followed by an equally rapid return to lockdown.

Mr Treyvaud will appear before the Oireachtas media committee today and is expected to tell the hearing: “I have to admit, even I didn’t see us still being closed to this very day, almost nine months later.”

Describing the cost of reopening, he will say: "To give you an idea of what it takes to start up again with purchasing stock, to start up again with purchasing stock, you wouldn’t see much change from €15,000.

“Since this last lockdown my industry has not earned a single cent for our livelihoods."

“We have been tarnished with the blame,” Mr Treyvaud will say regarding the surge of cases last winter, “when the data clearly shows that this was not the case”.

He will argue that hospitality should have been allowed to reopen on June 2 along with hotels in order to “have the same playing field”, while the “biggest issue yet” will be the “absolute carnage that will follow this winter when so many restaurants will simply go bust as soon as the subsidies stop”.

“The biggest blow to my peers was hearing the Taoiseach repeatedly state that we were deemed nonessential,” Mr Treyvaud will say. 

“I would argue that the tourism industry is the single most important pillar of our society. To be told we are nonessential was an insult to every person working in hospitality.”

Separately, at the same hearing, Arts Council chairman Professor Kevin Rafter will state that his sector “was one of the first to be hit and will be one of the last to recover” from the pandemic, with 15% of jobs lost and a further 26% entirely dependent upon Government support.