From our own correspondent in Ireland

If you think things are bad here, spare a thought for our friends in Ireland where 'wet' pubs and bars are still formally closed five months after lockdown.

According to the BBC:

Taoiseach (Irish PM) Micheál Martin said the Republic of Ireland could not "risk moving backward".

Prior to yesterday's announcement, the Vintners' Federation of Ireland had described Tuesday as a "make or break day" for the hospitality industry.

Micheál Martin is of course the man who banned smoking in every pub and bar in Ireland in 2004, a move that led directly to Scotland and then the rest of the UK following suit.

This morning our man in Ireland John Mallon sent me the image below which was originally posted on the Forgotten Ireland Facebook page.

John also updated me on the current situation in Ireland. I thought you'd like to read it. It starts below the picture.

GUEST POST – JOHN MALLON

We are now five months in lockdown and the restrictions continue. Yesterday the man who announced himself as the saviour of all barmen when he introduced the smoking ban in 2004 has just decided that their workplaces must remain closed. Thanks to Micheál Martin, publicans all over the land have confirmed that they may never open again. The man himself is pleading that he’s only following ‘expert’ advice. Imagine all those large, silent pubs across the land, empty but guaranteed to be smoke free. They’ll be barman free too so Saint Michael may finally be responsible for killing off the bar trade in Ireland, even as we continue to export the ‘Irish Pub’ concept.

It’s not as straightforward as that, though. It never is in this country. As part of the programme to ease restrictions former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar previously said that restaurants could re-open on June 29. Immediately many publicans pointed out that a large percentage of their business was food. Indeed, some of the best places to eat over here are pubs. Anyway, Varadkar found himself in a corner so he came up with a so-called compromise that meant wet pubs had to remain closed but those serving a €9 meal could open and serve drinks as well.

The Irish are nothing if not imaginative however and it was another Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, who years ago coined the phrase, “An Irish solution for an Irish problem.” Hence this tale of three pubs. The biggest and the best has not re-opened and has no plans to do so. According to the owner, their two breweries are working flat out supplying off-licences and supermarkets. Their own off-license has been open since March and has extended to include a small shop and both are doing a flying trade.

The second (and roughest) pub is close to a Chinese restaurant and when it reopened there was a Chinese menu at the bar. Apparently though there’s no rush on a fella to order food. He can have a pint and read the menu at his leisure and for as long as he likes, perhaps running out of time to eat and needing to go home instead.

Then a third bar reopened having installed a pizza oven. Here you order your pint and you are offered a pizza voucher for €9. Of course a barman is not going to tell you what to spend your own voucher on so while the pizza menu is not as extensive as the Chinese one, a fella might take just as long considering his options and after three or four pints he too may decide that his appetite has deserted him and he’ll use the voucher for beer instead.

A saying from the old East Germany went something like this: “They continue to pretend to pay us and we continue to pretend to work.” It’s a bit like that in Ireland, as in, "They pretend to rule us and we pretend to obey them." Meanwhile, in five and a half months of this 'raging' virus, the City and County of Cork (population 500,000) has officially suffered exactly 50 deaths attributed to Covid-19. According to the Central Statistics Office the daily rate of death from all causes in the Republic of Ireland is 80-a-day.

Yet we are all still being governed by special powers that can change daily. Oh, and the Government is currently on a six week holiday. I sense a certain cynicism emerging as many are questioning the wisdom of it all. Talk such as this though is being done safely in the company of friends and not publicly where one could be ridiculed as irresponsible. Social media has a lot to answer for!

John Mallon is spokesman for Forest Ireland