One Dublin restaurant owner plans to defy the government's two metre social distancing rule, putting a one metre distance in place instead.
The guideline will take centre stage at the Oireachtas Covid-19 Committee today. Business group IBEC wants the distance cut in half to help businesses survive.
Meanwhile the National Public Health Emergency Team is considering changing the rules to one metre for the hospitality sector when the Covid-19 transmission rate is low across the country.
There are fears thousands of workers in hotels, pubs and restaurants may not be able to return to their jobs if the two metre rule isn't relaxed.
The co-owner of Dublin restaurants FIRE and Sole Seafood and Grill says they will be implementing a one metre social distancing policy rather than two when they reopen.
Padraic O'Kane says they wouldn't be able to continue trading otherwise;
"We're fortunate, we've a big restaurant so we're a minimum and in a lot of places larger than that, of one metre between the tables...we've been playing around with the restaurant for the last number of weeks, it's taking 40 per cent of the seating out."
He says a restaurant like FIRE which was a 280-seater, is now a 162-seater restaurant.
