Mr. Paul Treyvaud:

I thank the Chair and members of committee. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the impact of Covid-19 on the restaurant industry. Obviously, yesterday’s announcements were not what we were expecting. I want to give the committee a brief background on what has been going on in our industry since March 2020. We closed on 15 March 2020, like pretty much every other restaurant, before we were told to. We have traded for three out of the last 16 months. Since then, it has gone downhill. We had maybe six busy weeks last summer. There was no spike or surge in the numbers at that time.

We were locked down again 5 October 2020, and we pivoted back as a pop-up deli, like most businesses which have been doing a take-away or whatever they have had to do to survive. We did not reopen for the two-week gap at Christmas, because we thought we knew what was coming. Also, suppliers had told us no credit would be given for this time and it was up to us if we were to reopen. Therefore, we could not take the risk. Yet, we were still blamed for the surge in hospitalisation, intensive care unit, ICU, numbers, and the number of deaths. This is not a nice thing to be told, now that the data clearly state that this was not the case and all of this started beforehand.

Since then, we have not earned a single cent. We are sitting here waiting. To this day, we still have no idea when we are getting back to work. Our staff are still asking me when they will be able to earn their salaries. To say that this is utter carnage is an understatement.

Since January, 97% of cases were the UK variant. The Delta variant has been in the country for the best part of two or three months. I just heard it said in the Dáil that this is one of the few countries that has mandatory hotel quarantine. This beggars the question as to who is not doing his or her job. We have done everything we have been told to do and yet these variants are getting into the country. As I said, we are quite creative in the kitchen, but none of us knows the formula of any of these variants. It was not us who brought them in.

They are coming from somewhere.

I love my profession way too much to let this be the scapegoat for any longer. We have to stand up and fight. We sat and waited patiently. We did everything we were supposed to do and yet it is so hard to keep doing it when up the road for me a different premises is allowed do indoor dining and I am not. I just do not understand it. Nobody in my industry understands how it is safe in one premises but not in another. None of us expected what came out yesterday. It was a dagger through our heart which is probably the sixth or seventh one we have taken in the last 16 months.

The tourism and hospitality industry is probably the most important pillar of the economy. If that crashes, everything will crash. We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg of the carnage that is coming down the road. The biggest let-down by our Government, as far as I am concerned, is to be told we are non-essential to the society over which it wishes to govern and that our livelihoods are non-essential. That is not easy to take. Everyone in this industry works extremely hard. We work 14- or 16-hour days. We ensure people enjoy themselves and that they have a great time in a bar or restaurant. We do it safely, and we have done that since day one. As I sit here today, I still have no idea how it can be done somewhere else, but not in my premises, or in any other restaurant or bar around the country.

On 12 May, I launched what was known as “the plan”. We contacted every single politician and there are quite a few here today. We got some incredible support from members of this committee. “The plan” was the right course of action. I said to open up all hospitality on 2 June at the exact same time, with the same guidelines and conditions, otherwise we would face catastrophic disaster going forward. Everything I said that was going to happen has happened, with staff issues, with cancellations, with people moving up North and with people going abroad on holidays. Just yesterday I took 500 cancellations throughout the month of July and the first two weeks of August. I had 500 cancellations in a six-week period. That was just in Treyvaud’s restaurant. I have spoken to people in many other places who have faced the exact same thing.

At this stage, I do not know how far beyond trouble we are. It is a disaster. I do not want to take up any more of the committee’s time. I am available to answer any questions.