The hospitality industry has lost a huge amount of revenue due to unclear guidelines, according to the head of the Restaurants Association.
It comes after the Attorney-General has advised the Government outdoor events for up to 200 people are allowed for social reasons - as long as they are not weddings, sporting events, training or in a private home.
This follows a controversial event held on the grounds of Dublin's Merrion Hotel, which saw Katherine Zappone ultimately turn down a UN special envoy post.
Adrian Cummins told Newstalk Breakfast he is glad the guidelines are being updated, but businesses have turned away a lot of customers.
"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.
"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."
'Economically flattened'
He says the guidelines from Fáilte Ireland were not clear.
"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".
"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".
