Mr. Donall O'Keeffe:

In the Dublin pub trade, in round figures about 80% of the businesses are family-owned, mortgaged or banked in some way, while 20% are leased. The most exposed category across the hospitality sector consists of businesses that are leased. They are essentially at the mercy of the landlord and the level of landlord support for their business will be the crucial determinant of whether they survive this or not. The RAI has said and we have it in our submission that there needs to be an immediate doubling of the CRSS payment to help businesses deal with fixed costs. Irrespective of whether a business is leased or mortgaged, the biggest fixed cost will relate to the property. In round figures, in the Dublin pub trade fixed costs are somewhere between 20% and 25% of normalised turnover. CRSS payments are set at 10% of turnover, so it is about half the level needed to ensure longer-term sustainability.