Government must stand up for Irish businesses and reject the latest advice from NPHET, according to a Dublin pub owner.

Last night the public health team recommended a new 5pm closing time for hospitality in response to the Omicron variant.

NPHET is also calling for all indoor sporting and cultural events to take place before 5pm and be capped at 50% capacity.

Outdoor events would be capped at 50% or 5,000 people under the proposals.

On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, Deirdre Devitt, owner of The Two Sisters pub in Terenure, Dublin voiced anger that almost two years into the pandemic, there is still no plan for living with COVID.

“I would ask Leo Varadkar, Paschal Donohoe, Michael McGrath to stand up for business. Be proactive and put their efforts into pre-emptive risk-mitigation strategies.

“I am concerned about our business; I am concerned about our staff and I am concerned about keeping people in the hospitality business which is a fantastic business.

“This is like a bad Eminem song. You know, cut everything, cut the supports, tell people to cut their social interactions, reintroduce the supports and then cut them back again.

“It is not working and we are two years in.”

Ms Devitt invested close to €40,000 on COVID-mitigation measures in The Two Sisters ahead of the first reopening in summer 2020.

She said the recovery plan has to be able to “weave its way around whatever is thrown at us and we have to mitigate those risks and consequences”.

“I mean Epsilon and Gamma and Beta or whatever else is coming at us. We are in this for the long hall so what is the plan?” she said.

“Two years later we need a Living with COVID plan. We need to keep businesses open; we need to keep people sane.

“This is going to come at us hard and fast and they will always be coming at us with something.

“If you were a business and you were constantly being hit with something, would you close all the time? That is not a solution.”

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