The chairperson of the Mayo branch of the VFI, Alan Gielty has described the delay in opening up indoor dining and drinking this week as "ludicrous."
Gielty, who runs a bar and restaurant on Achill Island, told the Mayo Advertiser this week that: "It's not good enough and they have no plan, they come out with a completely ludicrous you can not go indoors and have a meal, but 50 people can go inside for a wedding.
"You don't have to ask the people who are at the wedding are they vaccinated or not, you can go to the cinema, you can pile yourself into any supermarket around the country - you are not asked for any tracking information nothing. What's their problem, what's their problem with the pubs?"
Gilety had been preparing his business to fully reopen next week, but that has had to be thrown out following the decision by government this week to delay the reopening.
"I had all my staff organised, I had them coming in on Thursday to be ready for opening on Monday, my chefs were in the week previously doing all the cleaning. I had all my beer stock in, I had to cancel all my soft drinks and everything else, but I have all my beer in. They are not going to take it back this time, now there is a date on it for a month or so, but what can we do?"
He also outlined a knock-on effect this delay has on the community and businesses in the county that supply him, saying:"All food cancelled - this is a knockdown effect, look at all the people this employs around the place, they are students, who need money to survive college during Winter and there is no money there now and it is putting more financial pressure on parents.
"The only way you can survive in any business like this outside of Dublin is if you're like a bear, you feed in the Summer and live off it in the Winter, it is that simple; it is your bread and butter; it is where you make your money; you are depending on the tourist trade and look, Achill, as everyone knows, we have a lot of hotels, coffee shops, pubs we all depend on the trade in the Summer.
"You have vegetable suppliers, meat suppliers, bread, the knockdown effect is affecting every single one of those working for these suppliers, they all have families, it is a huge effect."
He pointed out that this time last year businesses like his re-opened and there was no vaccination process underway in the country, saying: "We opened last year on July 3 and we ran things to the book, we had no break-out on our premises and there was no vaccine, and here we are with nearly two million people vaccinated, and we are not allowed to open our door.
"Two people walking down the road in Achill can not come into me to my bar and have a bite of lunch and be gone in half an hour, but if they go to a wedding, they can sit in a room, not know everybody, not be asked if they are vaccinated, and they sit in that room for eight or nine hours."
He went on to say he fears that there will be no Summer season for businesses like his this year: "I honestly think if we don't put our foot down and try and get a season it is not going to be open until after August weekend.
"People are making a judgement on what was happening in Dublin. Temple Bar was jam-packed with a load of people out partying, they think that every little rural town in Ireland is like that; what planet are they on? Let a few of them come down here - let them go out to Blacksod, let them go down to Louisburgh and see how it is, before making a decision.
"Why not open it zone by zone? As publicans we have been very responsible, we have put in all the guidelines, done all the contact tracing. I can give you the name and address and contact number of every single person who came into my place last year and it worked very well; we did everything by the book, had no breakouts, nobody was vaccinated – yet here we are."
