Coronavirus: Hospitality venues in Ireland to close early

The Irish cabinet has agreed that hospitality venues, cinemas and theatres should have a closing time of 20:00 to curb the spread of Covid-19.

The measures will take effect from Monday, 20 December.

The National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) had originally recommended a 17:00 cut off from Monday.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the Omicron variant represented a "significant threat" to the Republic.

In a televised address, he said more than a third of new cases in recent days in the country were due to the new variant.

"The Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus is exploding through Europe," Mr Martin said.

"It is here, it is in our country and we are going to see a massive rise in infections.

"It spreads so aggressively throughout all age groups that we are likely to see infections at a rate that is far in excess of anything we have seen to date - it is that serious."

The cabinet has agreed that the measures will stay in place until 30 January, with that date being kept under review.

Other measures agreed on Friday include:

• Number of spectators allowed to attend sporting events to be capped at 50% capacity, up to a maximum of 5,000 people.

• All indoor events can operate at 1,000 or 50% capacity and must be fully seated.

• Weddings will have a cut-off time of midnight and an attendance cap of 100

Earlier this month, the Irish government introduced measures that were expected to last until 9 January.

These included the closure of nightclubs, attendance limits on concerts and sporting fixtures and tighter restrictions on the hospitality sector.

On Friday a further 3,628 cases of coronavirus were recorded in the Republic of Ireland.

As of 15 December, 5,835 deaths in the country have been linked to coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.

Earlier on Friday, Adrian Cummins, chief executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland, said there was huge anger across the hospitality sector at proposals for an early closing time.

Mr Cummins questioned if there was a plan "to keep hospitality open viably".

The Vintners' Federation of Ireland said the proposal would be "devastating" if introduced.

'All hands on deck'

Speaking this week, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said it was "all hands on deck" to improve Ireland's booster effort and said more than 1.25m people had received theirs.

He said the Republic expected to "get close to 1.75m by Christmas and maybe 2m by the new year".

However, he said that would not be enough on its own.