[ad_1]
The publicans have asked the Data Protection Commissioner to urgently review the new guidelines published by Fáilte Ireland that require bars and restaurants to keep a record of what customers eat.
Áilte Ireland’s latest update to its Covid-19 guidelines for the hotel industry is in line with new regulations signed by Health Minister Stephen Donnelly.
Food serving pubs, restaurants, and cafes now need to ensure that no more than six people from a maximum of three households are at a table.
A record of each customer’s orders should also be kept.
Business owners in the hospitality sector say the guidelines were published “without any consultation with the industry” and have described them as “crazed bureaucracy.”
The Licensed Vintners’ Association (LVA), which represents pubs in the Dublin area, has written to the Data Protection Commission requesting an urgent review of the latest measures.
A spokesperson for LVA said: “The administrative burden this will create has not been thought through. How will you help protect public health by knowing what topping was on a customer’s pizza or how their potatoes were cooked? We believe this is a total overreach.
“Given the data collection requirements this will impose on the industry, we have asked the Data Protection Commission for its opinion on this new measure.”
Meanwhile, a TD from Fianna Fáil attacked what she described as “Stasi” guidelines issued to pubs, restaurants and cafes to keep track of what customers order.
Sligo-Leitrim TD Marc MacSharry has called on the government ministers of Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil to revoke the “police state restrictions” which he described as “authoritarian and unnecessary”.
MacSharry was responding to Fáilte Ireland’s latest update of its Covid-19 guidelines for the hospitality industry based on new regulations signed by Donnelly.
Companies and services are recommended to keep a date and time of arrival of clients along with the name and contact details of one person per party. According to regulations, all details must be kept on file for 28 days.
In a message sent to Micheál Martin and the ministers of the Fianna Fáil on Thursday, Mr. MacSharry said: “Taoiseach, ministers: I request immediate intervention to alter the ‘Stasi’ guidelines issued for restaurateurs and gastric publicans where now They will be asked to take details of who it is and now incredibly what they have eaten.
“This is a step too far and I ask everyone to urgently reverse this authoritarian and unnecessary nonsense. We have had successful lockdowns. The reverse is to consider, at the very least, pilot-managed relaxation in counties where cases have been extremely low. or nonexistent. ”
The Fianna Fáil backbencher also referenced Tánaiste Leo Varadkar’s comments to the Fine Gael parliamentary party on Wednesday night. Mr Varadkar told his colleagues that he did not know why Ireland is the only country in Europe where so-called wet pubs are closed and said that the innkeepers must have the opportunity to demonstrate that they can reopen safely by respecting the rules.
“We have Leo telling him his last night that we should relax everything and open all the pubs and we are making it better,” MacSharry said.
“In any case, the guidelines released today are ridiculous. I would drop this point at the PP meeting if we had any, so I am just sending a text message collectively in the hope and despair that they will collectively address the state restrictions urgently. Police announced today “.
The new guidelines were previously criticized by the Irish Vintners Federation, whose chief executive, Padraig Cribben, said: “This is insane. The idea that a pub should record all food ordered by every customer and then store it for 28 days is crazed bureaucracy. Not only is it too impractical for our members to implement, but why does the Government think this law will help in the fight against Covid? It’s crazy.
“We are all in favor of making customers feel safe in our pubs, but this new measure only increases the pressure on staff who already face a number of new security measures.”
He stated that there were no consultations with the hospitality industry prior to the introduction of the new regulations by Mr. Donnelly.
Online editors
[ad_2]