Galway publicans raise a glass to binning of €9 meal

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – City publicans, and punters, will raise a glass to the binning of the €9 meal rule, as Government signalled a return to some sort of normality in watering holes.

And the Galway Branch of the Vintners Federation of Ireland is also toasting pedestrianisation plans that will open up Salthill, Woodquay and Westend to on-street outdoor dining plazas this Summer.

The lockdown reopening plan to be signed off by Cabinet yesterday has publicans back pulling pints for outdoors only, and outside dining on June 7.

Exact details of the plan were announced in a televised address by An Taoiseach Micheál Martin last night, including hotels and guesthouses opening on June 2.

Johnny Duggan, Chair of Galway branch of Vintners Federation of Ireland, has welcomed the scrapping of the “nonsense” €9 meal rule.

“I’ve never seen so much food put in the bin, ever in my life as a result of that rule. People had to order a €9 meal (to buy a drink) but we couldn’t insist that they ate it. The amount of food waste it created was astonishing. The spirit of what they were trying to achieve was that you could only go to a hospitality business if you were eating but people trying to implement it and enforce it when you got into the detail was ridiculous.”
(Photo: Getting full kegs ready for removal by the breweries during the first lockdown).
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