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Restaurants and pubs should only be allowed to offer takeout and home delivery service throughout the Christmas period, in accordance with the recommendations made to the Government by Nphet.
Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan’s recommendation casts doubt on the government’s plans to allow restaurants and pubs serving food to open in the second week of December.
The recommendation will now be debated by the Cabinet Committee on Covid-19, which will be attended by Mr. Holohan.
Meanwhile, Nphet also recommended that only two households be allowed to meet at the gates once the Level 5 lockdown ends next week.
The group also suggested that restrictions on social gatherings could be further eased to allow six people from at most three households to gather indoors closer to Christmas.
Nphet proposes that the country move to the “enhanced” Level 3 restrictions as of December 2.
This would mean that restaurants and pubs could only continue to offer takeout and home delivery throughout the entire Christmas period.
People would be told to stay in their county and asked to keep any non-essential travel to their location.
Non-essential retailers would be allowed to open, but protective measures should be introduced to ensure the virus does not spread among shoppers.
Nphet is understood to have raised specific concerns about the opening of shopping malls, saying that “robust” measures should be introduced to ensure they reopen safely.
The recommendation regarding the hotel industry will be the most divisive before the Cabinet makes a decision.
Ongoing talks within the government this week saw ministers planning to reopen restaurants and gastropubs in the second week of December.
Pubs will need to have a kitchen and chef on site to provide meals. The goal of the new regulations was to clamp down on pubs serving sandwiches and baked pizzas to avoid the € 9 substantial meal rule for serving alcohol.
Pubs have also allowed customers to order food from other local businesses to circumvent the rules.
Ministers did not expect to allow the dank pubs to reopen before Christmas. The wet pubs only reopened outside of Dublin earlier this year for a brief period before the second closure.
The Cabinet Committee on Covid-19 will meet this afternoon to discuss Nphet’s advice and a series of data collected on behalf of the Department of the Taoiseach by EY auditors.
Online editors
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