‘There’s economic pain for everybody’
handling of the crisis.
“I think we’re so blessed that he was still in the driving seat when this happened. He had a
DAITHÍ Geaney of the Barr na Sráide Inn, Dingle, has spent over 33-years involved in the family business.
He recently invested heavily in revamping the accommodation side of the business and to be hit with closure ahead of the tourist season is a headache he could never have imagined possible.
“Even though the bar side of the trade has been on a downer in the last couple of years, the accommodation side of things was going in the opposite direction with the volume of tourists coming to Dingle. This is just devastating,” he says.
Daithí describes the past few weeks as ‘very strange’, while trying to find something to do in the bar to kill time feels even stranger.
“It’s hard to get your head around this, especially when it’s your own place as you’re never switched off from it.
“We’re used to being opened from 9am to 2am, so it’s constantly great understating of the system and the medical side of it. I think he really sprung to action immediately. Yes, we’ll probably a part of your says.
Daithí feels that 2020 may be a year to ‘write off ’ as there simply won’t be any tourists life,” he be paying for this for a long time, but this is our World War III in a sense,” Kate concludes. visiting the country. Tourism is a major player in the Dingle economy.
“People won’t travel. All people are doing is cancelling at the moment.
“We’ll bounce back, but it could take a year or two to get back to where we were. Tourism was flying here in Dingle in the last few years. It’s all we have, but how to do you deal with something like this?”
Daithí feels that even though VAT payments were initially deferred for 30 days, this won’t have much of an affect the longer the lockdown continues.
“I’d be willing to give the Government a chance to see what they will come up with,” he says.
“Some of the bigger countries are compensating up to 80 percent of salaries, I doubt that we’re going to see that.
“I think the 2008-10 crash is fresh enough in their minds, so they should have a good idea how to get through this. There’s economic pain for everybody in this crisis.”
EVEN THOUGH THE BAR TRADE WAS SLIDING, TOURISM WAS REALLY ON THE UP IN DINGLE... THIS IS JUST DEVASTATING