Minister calls for different measures to reopen rural pubs

THE ongoing lockdown of rural pubs in small towns and villages across the West of Ireland now needs to be reviewed on ‘a region-by-region’ basis, according to a Galway Junior Minister.

Minister of State at the Dept. of Children, Disability and Equality, Anne Rabbitte, told the Connacht Tribune that there was a growing recognition of the widely different circumstances that applied on a regional basis across the country.

“If rural publicans had wanted to be opportunist about this, all they would have to have done was to go out and buy a pizza oven for €500 and serve €9 meals.

“But they haven’t done that. Apart from the very odd exception they have remained closed, adhered to all the guidelines, and maybe it’s just time that they were given a break,” said Anne Rabbitte.

She said that over recent days, she had been pushing at Government level for a more regional approach to be taken as regards the reopening of rural pubs which acted as a major social hub for people in their areas.

“We’re just not comparing like-with-like here. In the run-up to St. Patrick’s Weekend we all saw those images of pubs and streets in places like Temple Bar being overcrowded and jammed with people.

“But that’s Dublin and Temple Bar – it is not the story of smalls towns and villages across rural Ireland which, to put it quite simply, have not been the problem in terms of high-risk coronavirus settings. That is a critical difference that must be recognised,” she said.

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