Covid-19 impact on pubs: 'It's not nice letting staff go for the second time in a few months'

Paul Montgomery of Clancy's Bar & Restaurant Princes Street, Cork.

Half of publicans in Ireland have had to let staff go permanently as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new research from the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI).

The industry body reports almost two-thirds of publicans say they would struggle to find work in other sectors.

Paul Montgomery, the owner of Clancy’s bar on Princes St in Cork city, had to let go 90 members of his staff as his business struggles to come to terms with the new rules under level three. The pub owner is confident it is only temporary but says it is a tough decision all the same.

“It's not nice when you're letting staff go for the second time in the space of a few months."

We had readjusted, we were serving a third of what we were serving before, but you could just about break-even,” he said.

Mr Montgomery says the new restrictions make no sense.

“I don’t see why we couldn’t open for food until a certain time, say 8pm. It doesn’t make sense that in a big venue like ours, we need can sit 15 outside but we can’t put 20 people inside," he said.

“I think there should be a phased reopening in the coming weeks. So that they say that next week, you can have a certain amount of people in before a certain time. And bring that up over time.” 

According to the DIGI, more than one-fifth of pubs in Ireland has continuing costs of up to €2,000 a week to sustain while generating no revenue during the lockdown. 

One-in-four publicans report a decline of over 50% in trade compared to 2019 and 15% of publicans have accumulated over €50,000 in debt due to Covid.

Mr Montgomery believes that this figure is correct for a lot of pubs, but for venues the size of his, the cost is much higher.

“We’d be looking at a multiple of that. It would be much higher. It’s not just us either, it's the staff.

"A lot of them would have been on good, full-time hours. The PUP just isn’t going to cut it when it comes to them paying their bills,” Mr Montgomery said.

The DIGI says 60% of publicans say they would struggle to find another job outside of the hospitality industry. 

Ger Devine runs Pharmacia in Limerick city and says the new restrictions are undoing all the hard work they have put in recently, to get the bar running at as close to normal as possible.

“When we were open, we were doing alright. We were just about breaking even. That was through meticulous hard work and just cutting back on every penny we could," he said.

“But because of the further restrictions on Monday, we are essentially closed. Like, we are open for Fridays and Saturdays, just so we are not fully closed, but it is more of a statement than anything. It is impossible to come close to breaking even that way."

Mr Devine agrees with the statement that it would be hard to swap industries, and believes by allowing bars to close, Irish tourism and culture will suffer in the future.

“Late-night bar work is just all-encompassing. It’s not an easy thing to just step away from and just go into another career. It’s part of who are, its part of our culture.”