Independent Kerry TD Danny Healy-Rae has hit out at new regulations that would see pubs having to keep a record of their customer’s orders for 28 days.
It comes after Fáilte Ireland issued updated guidelines for food service businesses which mean they have to keep a full record of the food and drink that was purchased by every table.
Deputy Healy-Rae told Ciara Kelly on Newstalk Breakfast: "We keep records as good as anyone else, but what I am objecting to is the idea that the virus will know whether you're having a meal with your drink or not.
"It doesn't make any sense".
"My big gripe is that we're making laws for pubs, and here in my county of Kerry there's two-thirds of the pubs not yet opened.
"It was so galling to hear a deputy from the Government side - when I was asking where were the rules and regulations to allow the wet pubs to open - a long standing member of that Government and a former minister suggested that maybe the publicans ourselves should come up with rules and regulations... to be put in place so that they could be opened.
"God dammit after the pubs being closed for over six months now, and many of them are at their wits end.
"This is the suggestion that comes from the Government side - it's absolutely ridiculous.
"And then to think that we're making laws... that would make it more difficult for the pubs that did open with food."
He denied that the new measures would allow wet pubs to open.
"They couldn't be making rules for the wet pubs because the wet pubs aren't open yet.
"And we don't have the rules and regulations that they're going to put in place for those pubs - and that's what I'm asking for.
"I'm sure that all publicans have been obeying the law back over the years".
Ciara Kelly pointed to 185 accusations of breaches against pubs so far.
On this, Deputy Healy-Rae asked: "How serious are these cases, are these infringements, that's what I don't know".
"We were told first that it was the public health side of the Government, as I'd call them, that they ordained pubs could only open if they were serving food.
"Now it's coming out that it's another body - a body that should be aiding and helping everybody in the hostelry industry - that it was they actually suggested it.
"It wasn't Government and it wasn't the publicans, and that's very unfair".
"I'm kind of afraid to name that body this morning until I do it in the Dáil".
