Yesterday, the Irish Government, in association with Failte Ireland, published their updated guidelines for the re-opening of restaurants, pubs and cafes.
Contained in the guidelines are a number of measures which have met with strong criticism. In fact at this late stage, the government are moving the goalposts on restaurants, many of whom will already have spent thousands preparing their premises for re-opening.
Here are the new guidelines:
- Outdoor service is permitted for a maximum of 6 persons aged 13 or over per table. This limit of 6 does not include accompanying children aged 12 or younger. The total combined capacity at a table cannot exceed 15 overall (max. 6 persons aged 13 and over).
- In an outdoor setting, physical distancing of a minimum of 1 metre is required between the outer edges of the party (back of chair to back of chair), as long as the business adheres to the protective measures.
- An outdoor place or premises that is covered by a roof, so long as not more than 50% of the perimeter (outside) is covered by a wall, windows, gate or similar.
The language used in this guidelines document is quite misleading.
For example on page 19 it says:
“The restaurant owner or management must follow the Government’s Public Health advice throughout Front of House”
This is inaccurate. Advice or guidelines are not legally enforcable, and therefore it is not true to say that any such advice or guidelines must be followed by restaurant owners. Laws must be followed, but mere advice can be ignored.
It appears that the powers that be are deliberately trying to muddy the waters and create confusion between what is law and what is advice or guidelines. In an opinion piece only a few weeks ago, The Irish Times made this point:
“This is now a well-established pattern. A report for the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, produced by the Covid-19 Law and Human Rights Observatory at Trinity, found that all through the pandemic Government communications have blurred the distinction between law or regulations and public health advice. Many older people believed they were legally required to “cocoon” last year, and a bizarre situation unfolded in which the gardaí and other State agencies used their powers to enforce guidance.”
Full article can be found here: The Irish Times view on Covid-19 laws and guidance: an unacceptable blurring of lines
Laws are made by the Houses of the Oireachtas when bills are passed and signed by the President. Laws are not made by Failte Ireland.
It must be noted, however, that some of the guidelines are also happen to be laws. For example, mask wearing is currently a law, as part of the Health ACT 1947 as amended in 2020. However, some of the above guidelines are not laws. The guideline which says ‘no live music permitted’ is not a law, nor is the requirement for table service, nor the capacity limits per table, nor are the segmented outdoor areas for smokers and non-smokers.
Obviously the government won’t say this, neither will most mainstream news outlets, but the fact is that some of these guidelines issued today can be ignored, and given the stupidity of some of them, many will feel that they should be.
Some within Fianna Fail have expressed their frustration at the guidelines:
The only Wexford TD to mention the pub and restaurant guidelines so far this week in Dáil Éireann is Verona Murphy. She had the following to say:
“Now is an appropriate time for the Government to change its approach. To date, the approach has been to dictate and talk down to people. It is still imposing stupid guidelines such as the proposed 105-minute limit on visits to pubs and restaurants. I ask people to bear in mind that these are only guidelines. That particular guideline will encourage people to move around to multiple pubs.
If a pub or restaurant wants to impose a time limit, that is fair enough, but it should be left to each business to decide for itself, depending on its circumstances. The attitude of the Government is that it knows best how people should live their lives. We must move away from dictating. The Government should provide the information and even advise people, but it must let them decide for themselves.”
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