Ireland set to reopen restaurants, gastropubs from Dec. 7 – reports

DUBLIN, Nov 26- Ireland’s cabinet will be asked on Friday to approve the reopening of restaurants and pubs that serve food from Dec. 7, a week after non-essential retailers will be allowed open their doors again, a number of local media outlets reported. Ireland became one of first European countries to reimpose tough COVID-19 constraints on Oct. 21 when the…

DUBLIN, Nov 26 (Reuters) – Ireland’s cabinet will be asked

on Friday to approve the reopening of restaurants and pubs that

serve food from Dec. 7, a week after non-essential retailers

will be allowed open their doors again, a number of local media

outlets reported.

Ireland became one of first European countries to reimposetough COVID-19 constraints on Oct. 21 when the government shutall non-essential retail and limited pubs and restaurants totakeaway service under its highest level of COVID-19 curbs.

Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said on Wednesday thatretailers currently constrained to click-and-collect serviceswould be the first to reopen when the restrictions are lifted onDec. 1.

Varadkar also said he hoped that bans around travel betweencounties would be lifted for something close to two weeks aroundthe Christmas holidays.

Senior ministers met late on Thursday to finalise theproposals to be put to the rest of cabinet ahead of anannouncement by Prime Minister Micheal Martin on Friday.

A government spokeswoman was not immediately available tocomment.

Ireland’s 14-day incidence rate of cases has fallen sharplyto 103.9 per 100,000 people from over 300 last month – the thirdlowest of the 31 countries monitored by the European Centre forDisease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

However the decline has stalled in the last two weeks andthe reproduction rate of the disease has not quite fallen to themark health officials targeted to keep cases at a low level fora sustained period as the curbs are lifted.(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; editing by Richard Pullin)