Ms Elaina Fitzgerald Kane:

It would have a profound impact. I am in a hotel in Dublin right now as a guest. The doors are locked for people who are not staying in the hotel. Some hotels have such a close link with their communities. When they cannot provide indoor dining, it is a huge part of their business. Not being able to reopen at a fuller scale or a restricted version of a fuller scale will have a huge impact on businesses, teams and communities. It is untenable and, in some cases, businesses have not been open for 16 months.

One of the points I will make is that we as hoteliers, and I am sure I can say this on behalf of all the tourism community, cannot wait for the point where we are not dependent on supports, which we are. They are so welcome, particularly now as we are trying to recruit people and retrain them. It is like starting all over again but the notion of not being able to proceed to the next level would have a hugely devastating effect. It is across all elements of one's business, whether it is indoor dining or weddings with a couple whose hopes and dreams have been put on hold. Any threat to international travel is untenable given the fact that other countries are open and have more clarity around their lead time and what it will look like. As an island nation, with €9 billion in tourism revenue and €7 billion of that coming from overseas, any further threat to that is just untenable. It is something I do not want to think about. It will make the road to recovery so much more difficult than it already is. That is 270,000 livelihoods in terms of tourism, not to mention the other people who are affected. We have seen that it is catastrophic.

In the context of Government, we often hear the sector was the first and hardest hit but the last to recover. That is the difficult bit and that is where we need the most help. We are very thankful for what has been put in place. If we want to get back to having sustainable levels of activity to sustain regions and communities, however, this three-point plan needs to be put in place to pivot us to be the best version we can be.