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Indoor dining in restaurants and cafes resumes today for the first time since last December, with many pubs not having opened their doors since March last year when Covid restrictions came into effect.

People who are fully vaccinated or who have recovered from Covid-19 in the past six months will be allowed to avail of indoor hospitality, along with accompanied minors.

Contact tracing is now only required for the lead person at a table and for solo customers under new updated guidelines, agreed last night.

Restaurants Association of Ireland Chief Executive Adrian Cummins said another change is that designated tables have been removed.

"This means businesses don't have to keep a record of what table a party sat at - we only heard about these updated guidelines through an email at ten past midnight this morning."

Businesses which reopen will also be able to avail of the three-week double payment of the Covid Restrictions Support Scheme.

Health officials have urged people to embrace the reopening safely.

 Adrian Cummins has said that a quarter of Irish businesses will not reopen for indoor dining immediately.

 Hoteliers are calling on the Government to make a clear announcement on wedding guest numbers early this week. Couples across the country face an anxious wait on whether the number of permitted guests can increase to 100 from 6th August, as had been anticipated under the broader reopening of society.  Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) President, Elaina Fitzgerald Kane said “Public health remains our number one priority and we recognise the difficult balance the Government has to achieve. We are asking the Government to bear in mind that most wedding guests have been vaccinated while the weddings are being hosted in spacious ballrooms many of which offer in excess of current social distancing requirements. 

 “Wedding couples, many of whom have rescheduled their wedding plans a number of times, find themselves less than two weeks before their wedding with their plans in jeopardy again. Over the past few days, hotels and wedding venues across the country have been inundated with calls from wedding couples asking if they need to ‘un-invite’ 50 of their guests. It is important to them and to their guests to have clarity on what is permitted,” she said.

Ryanair has increased its forecast for full-year traffic on strong summer bookings but said fares remained well below pre-pandemic levels as it reported an after-tax loss of €273m for the three months to the end of June.

The airline said it expected to fly between 90 and 100 million passengers in its financial year to end-March 2022.

This was up from an earlier forecast of 80-100 million.

Ryanair said it flew 27.5 million passengers in the year to March 2021, down from a pre-Covid-19 peak of 149 million the previous year.

The loss of €273m the first quarter was slightly better than the €283m loss forecast by a company poll of analysts.

The Hotel Bristol Warsaw has welcomed Aidan Dempsey as the its General Manager.

With over twenty years in the hospitality industry and considerable exposure to luxury  and  boutique hotel brands, Aidan brings an impressive  experience to Hotel Bristol, Warsaw. He comes to Poland from Dubai, where he also held the position of General Manager. 

A native of Wicklow  after graduating from Shannon College of Hotel Management with a Bachelor's Degree in International Hotel Management, Aidan worked across all operational departments focusing his work on quality assurance, guest satisfaction, and successful upsell programs. Throughout his time, he successfully led hotel strategies  and was responsible for the remodeling and rebranding of several restaurants and bars as well as supervising general hotel renovations.