Bar owner and drag performer Panti Bliss, aka Rory O'Neill, says there are 'real people' behind the bar industry.
She owns two bars in Dublin city, including her namesake 'Panti Bar'.
She told The Hard Shoulder those hitting out at calls for bars to re-open should think twice.
"I feel these days at the moment there's a big divide between the people who lost their commute but not much else - they're working from home and everything continues - and the people in industries like mine where everything just ended.
"The bar business: we're closed, have been and will be for another month.
"And in the performing end of my life, there are no theatres, there are no club shows and all of that.
"Everything just stopped, it's been so weird."
Asked about the business model going forward, she said: "A place like Panti Bar, our business model involves - we take about 70% of our income in an eight hour period in the week.
"Four hours each on Friday and Saturday night.
"And without those eight hours being packed, we just don't have a business".
"We're opening and we're going to feel our way through... but it's going to be tough.
"We went thought the crash, we had to open just six months before the crash - so we know what tough years are like and all.
"The social distancing rules, I'm very fearful for bars like ours."
"People so flippantly I hear say all the time: 'keep the bars closed' or they say 'greedy publicans are trying to open their bars'.
"But there are people involved here - for example just me personally, I've poured 13 years of my life into Panti Bar.
"It's much more than a business to me, and has been more than a business to me.
"It's a second home to me, we have staff that have been there all 13 years, it's like a second home to them.
"Anyone who's ever worked in a bar will know that because of the unsocial hours and everything, the staff they become more than just your workmates.
"They hang out together, they live together... so there are real people behind this very flippant [attitude]".
