Restaurant owners in Kildare, Laois and Offaly say last Friday’s lockdown announcement was a “like a bomb going off.”

The Government announced the localised lockdown on Friday evening after clusters of COVID-19 in meat factories led to a large increase in cases.

The restrictions, which allow shops to remain open but forces pubs and restaurants to operate as takeaway only are due to remain in place for two weeks.

Picaderos Restaurant in Maynooth. Image: Facebook

On Lunchtime Live with Susan Keogh this afternoon, Martin McMahon, General Manager of Picaderos and Donatellos restaurants in Maynooth said he left with thousands of Euros worth of fresh food he couldn’t sell.

“It was like a bomb going off to be fair,” he said. “We weren’t expecting it to actually be rolled out. To find out at 6pm on Friday evening that we have to change all our business plans for the next two weeks was just crazy.”

“Like any other busy, high-season weekend, all the orders are placed well before then so we were actually scurrying around at that point trying to source take-away containers and things because we didn’t have that many in stock because we weren’t expecting it.

“At the same time, we have thousands of Euros of fresh produce in the fridges, but we didn’t get through a quarter of it.”

Donatellos Restaurant in Maynooth. Image: Facebook

Mr McMahon said Government policy appears to be skewed in favour of some industries over others.

“We feel like our industry is being penalised for a different sector’s misbehaviour,” he said.

“We have put health and safety at the forefront of everything. We created our own health and safety rules even before the return to work protocol was rolled out in May. We have pretty much ticked every box and we are going above and beyond.

“Obviously, they could have localised this to the actual clusters themselves. Why they are doing the entire three counties I don’t know. It feels like it was a panicked decision from the Government to do this.”

The Brewery Tap in Tullamore. Image: Facebook

Meanwhile, Paul Bell, owner of the Brewery Tap in Tullamore said the hospitality industry appears to be a “very soft target” for the Government when it comes to the COVID-19 response.

“We are being punished for inept activity in a lot of meat factories and bad standards,” he said.

“If there was an outbreak of COVID in the pubs, would they shut the meat factories? It just doesn’t make any sense to me. I don’t know of one case in Ireland that has been traced back to any pub or restaurant in Ireland.”

He said his pub was “fully booked out for the whole weekend” and he was left scrambling to offload produce when the news came in.

“We put in unbelievable hours here the last six weeks, myself and my wife Kathy-Anne,” he said.

“We went above and beyond. Every customer was temperature checked, all the contact tracing details were taken and genuinely, there were tears here last Friday when we were told we had to lock down again.

“I have about 25 staff here and we have a great team and they were devastated. They have put in a huge effort. It is not easy working under these conditions.”