Pubs across Ireland have lost "a huge amount of revenue" after the confusion surrounding the public health guidelines continued, a hospitality chief has claimed.
On Wednesday, the Attorney General advised the Government that parties up to 200 people are permitted outdoors - as long as they are not weddings, sporting events, training or in a private home.
This ruling came in the wake of former Minister Katherine Zappone hosting an event for 50 people in the Merrion Hotel which Leo Varadkar attended.
Having questioned whether we would have found out about the guidelines if not for this event, Restaurants Association of Ireland CEO Adrian Cummins doubled down on Thursday.
Mr Cummins told Newstalk Breakfast he is glad the guidelines are being updated, but businesses have turned away a lot of customers.
He said: "It was news to our industry that we're now allowed up to 200 people for outdoor gatherings within social settings.
"We didn't know that until yesterday, until the Attorney General made the announcement. We welcome the announcement, because it gives us extra capacity and extra revenue opportunity.
"We are disappointed that it took an event for 50 people to bring this announcement around and delivered to the industry.
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"It's now how we would like to do business, we want to make sure that we do everything right.
"And also we now need to say to the Government 'We've missed a huge amount of revenue within hospitality'.
"So they need to look at the closing hours of 11.30 for industry immediately to try and give us some sort of recourse for the loss of revenue over the last number of weeks."
The line has always been to follow the Fáilte Ireland guidelines, according to Mr Cummins.
However, the last few days have presented a number of issues with these rules.
Mr Cummins continued: "Nobody knew, and there was a lot of confusion over the last number of days.
"We have always been instructed to look at the Fáilte Ireland guidelines... it wasn't there. It is being updated by Fáilte Ireland this morning.
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"This is the first time now, to my knowledge, the Attorney-General has intervened with clarification around the regulations since March of last year.
"So we have the issue now clarified, we now know we can have up to 200 people outside.
"There's a lot of businesses that have turned away a lot of business over the last number of weeks because they did not know, through the Fáilte Ireland guidelines, that they could have up to 200 people at an outdoor event.
"I think we need to move forward, I think Fáilte Ireland needs to correct the guidelines this morning - and I think somebody needs to say sorry to our industry that has been economically flattened since last March."
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