The rate of closure for rural pubs across Ireland will only accelerate if necessary supports are not put in place ahead of the upcoming Budget, rural campaigners have warned.
According to current figures, one pub is closing every three and a half days on average, with as many as 86 pubs closing last year, meaning that a total of 2,200 pubs have disappeared nationwide since 2005.
This has led to vintners pleading for supports to be put in place in Budget 2027, the Irish Independent has reported.
Over the last 20 years, one in three pubs have close across counties Limerick, Offaly, Cork, Roscommon, Tipperary and Laois, with the Government warning that the rural pub may cease to exist in some parts of the country, which would undermine a key element of the Irish tourism industry, damaging an important social outlet across communities.
While some urban areas such as Dublin have seen a decline in pub operations of just 1%, rural areas have been the hardest hit.
According to the Irish Independent, Tipperary councillor, Andy Moloney, has warned that the pub sector is "dying" and in desperate need of support.
Mr Moloney, whose family run a rural pub, said that rural pubs are at the heartbeat of communities, and often provide social outlets, including venues for sport meetings, post funeral gatherings, festivals and charity events.
“Customers realise that if the crossroads is gone – if the local pub is gone – some of them might never be outside the door again,” Mr Moloney said. “In a crossroads pub you have no village. You might not have any street of houses. People just come together, so it is a social hub, rather than a pub".
Elsewhere, the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI) and the Licensed Vintners Association (LVA) have stated that publicans are in need of support in order for the current number of operations to be protected.
DIGI have warned that as many as 1,000 more pubs are at risk of closure by 2035, if they do not receive supports from the upcoming Budget, which would reduce the number of publicans from 6,498 in 2024 to 5,500.
In Fermoy, a town in Cork, there are just eight pubs left standing, compared with 77 in 1915.
This decline also comes amid the rise of home-drinking rates, with 44% of drinkers saying they mainly drink alcohol in their home home. Many others have said they drank alone and did not frequent a pub to socialise either before or after home drinking.
DIGI have called for excise duty to be cut by the Government, while publicans have also asked for the in-pub sale to be supported for draught products, which they say would help to combat the increase in home drinking.
Meanwhile, the LVA have said that some tricky challenges lie ahead for the industry, with communities hit hard by the rate of pub closures, with many publicans warning that the industry is in a battle for survival.
Ger Kiely, who operates The Old Oak. one of the biggest pub and entertainment venues in Cork, said: “It’s not just the tax burden. It’s all the other costs and the regulatory imposition on small businesses".
“The Government needs to look closely at the entire hospitality sector, from pubs to restaurants, cafes and live-music venues, while there is still something left to preserve and nurture", he added.
Other publicans have warned that high costs are doing huge damage to the industry's hopes of survival, with one publican, John Byrne who runs The Lark Inn on Meath Street, Dublin, has said that people who work in his industry need to be creative if they are to compete with competing attractions.
“The Government needs to look closely at the entire hospitality sector, from pubs to restaurants, cafes and live-music venues, while there is still something left to preserve and nurture", he said.
Mr Byrne added that the idea of visiting the pub once a week for a social meeting, has started to become a thing of the past, with the current generation meeting up in a pub once a month or more for pub outings.
