'Help is really needed for survival of the industry': More than 70 Cork pubs close in five years 

More than 70 pubs have closed their doors in Cork over the past five years, with fears that without Government help it is “inevitable” that many more will shut.

According to a report by the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI), there were 838 pubs trading in Co Cork at the end of 2023, compared to 910 in 2019, representing an 8% drop in the wake of the pandemic.

The report shows a 31.4% decline in the pub trade in Cork since 2005, when the county had 1,221 licenced premises.

Nationally, 574 pubs have closed since 2019 while 2,054 pubs have closed since 2005.

Kathryn D’Arcy, DIGI chairperson and communications and corporate affairs director at Irish Distillers, said the decline since 2005 reflects the “real change and challenges” the sector is dealing with.

“Pubs, restaurants, and hotels employ over 207,000 people, which is 8.3% of all employees in the country,” he said.

“These people and the businesses they work for are part of the economic and social fabric of their communities.

“Running such businesses in a climate where the cost of doing business is squeezing more and more is difficult.”

Ms D’Arcy said they are calling on Government to deliver a reduction in Ireland’s “extremely high excise duties” which would make an immediate, positive difference to the hundreds of small businesses in the sector that are struggling to stay open.

The president-elect of the Vintners Federation of Ireland, Michael O’Donovan, who owns the Castle Inn on Cork’s South Main St, said that unless the Government addresses how Vat and customs and excise charges affect the licenced trade, more pubs will close.

“Government help is really needed for the survival of the hospitality industry going forward,” Mr O’Donovan told The Echo.

“With Budget 2025 only weeks away, we would be calling on the Government to help us with the excise duty on beer and spirits, which we’re the second-highest in Europe on,” said Mr O’Donovan.

“We would be asking them to introduce over two years a 15% reduction on that duty to help publicans, and also a return from the 13.5% to the 9% Vat rate for food.”

Mr O’Donovan added that publicans were calling on the Government to return the higher Vat rate of 23% to 21%: “That general Vat rate of 23% was always meant to be a temporary measure to address austerity, to help the country through a bad time, but it hasn’t been addressed since, and that 23% on alcohol is a big figure that publicans are paying every month.”

A recent survey of almost 600 pubs and restaurants, conducted as part of the DIGI report, found that almost one in four had seen their business costs increase by 20%-30% in the last two years. An additional 15% found that their business costs had increased by over 40% in the last two years.

Mr O’Donovan said that if the Government were to introduce downward adjustments on Vat and excise rates affecting pubs, it might give pubs “a fighting chance” to survive.

He added that the loss of 383 pubs in Cork county in the 18 years since 2005 represented “a shocking decline”.

“Nearly 400 pubs over the past nearly 20 years closing across Cork is a huge number, and a sad loss to rural communities,” Mr O’Donovan said.