Death by the thousand cuts

The blood-letting in the Irish hospitality industry

Remember the name: James Geoghegan.

James Geoghegan is a Fine Gael general election candidate in Dublin Bay South, and he has just done something that every politician fears to do: Mr Geoghegan has stood up for Irish restaurants.

Politicians run scared from anything to do with restaurants, because they are terrified of being called “elitist.”

Mr Geoghegan was responding to the tsunami of closures amongst restaurants and cafés in Dublin, and has suggested that commercial rates should be waived, and the VAT rate reduced to 9%, in emergency measures which are necessary to stop more blood-letting in the hospitality industry. He has submitted an emergency motion to be discussed by Dublin City Council.

Helen Cunningham is one of the great Dublin food pioneers. Long before she turned the Phoenix Café into one of the best places in the city to eat, she ran one of the early Temple Bar restaurants, Blazes, before that zone became colonised by mega-pubs. Moving out to Phoenix Park gave her a great destination address. Helen is now relinquishing her stewardship of the cafe.

We asked her: why now? Surely everyone in food has had to roll with the punches multiple times over the years? She penned these replies to our questions from her car office between services:

“We have been through so many ups and downs but this time it feels like a multi pronged attack on the restaurant/cafe business. The hike in the VAT rate by 50% is absolutely detrimental to small hospitality businesses. At a time when all costs have rapidly escalated it makes no sense. Wage increases; extra bank holiday; extra sick pay; pension auto enrolment; higher ingredient costs; massive energy increases; and increases in rents are causing a tsunami of distress. To cap all of this the amount of compliance with various legislation is very difficult for small independent businesses.”

If any other sector in Ireland were to present such a litany of obstacles to Government, you can bet your last dime that they would act immediately. But the Government seems merely to view hospitality as a cash cow, ignoring its vital role in both our agriculture and tourism sectors. 

It may be that the Government believes people come to visit Ireland just for the scenery. If they believe that, they are 10 years out of date. Ireland, like Denmark and Peru and Italy and Spain attracts food lovers, not just sightseers.

We asked Helen to imagine that she were suddenly drafted in to be Minister for Food tomorrow. What would she do?

• Move the goalposts back to support small businesses, farmers, food producers and the hospitality sector (and separate hotels from restaurants) 

• Put food and food culture first. Get every department brain storming and working to put conditions in place to make Ireland the number one country in Europe for prioritising food culture education and business. 

• Decrease VAT.

• Overhaul the procurement process.

• Stop creating inflation bubbles by forcing restaurants to continuously increase prices.

• Stop giving token grants which are not structured properly: most small businesses do not have time to devote to such bureaucracy and would prefer genuine reductions. 

• Make sure the hospitality industry genuinely purchases produce from local and regional suppliers. Many large companies are green washing and pushing out the small independents”.

That’s all simple, logical and practical, but it’s not just big food companies who are green washing. Our own tourism bureaucrats will send journalists to the best Irish restaurants to paint a positive picture of Irish food. Meanwhile, other departments make life easy when the next multinational-coffee-fast food-chain-behemoth arrives to open their latest branch.

Why won’t Irish politicians stand up for our restaurant sector? Don’t they ever eat out? Could you imagine a French or Spanish politician being indifferent to their artisan food sector?

“I am absolutely mystified as to why they do not support the food industry. Small food producers, farmers, hospitality businesses are the life blood of Ireland. Everything we do in life revolves around food from celebrations to special events. It is the key to bringing people together and creating common ground. What is the point in enticing multi nationals while undermining our own food culture and hampering it with unwieldy legislation and extremely high costs, and absolutely no security.”

Of course, good government depends on co-ordination between the various Departments, but we seem to be living in an age of silos, where the left hand has no clue as to what the right hand is doing.

“I feel government policies are not coordinated. They react to public opinion rather than planning properly and fairly. They are too focused on image and their popularity, resulting in unsound decisions.”

Decades ago, in collaboration with the Danish Government, a bunch of Danish chefs created the Nordic Food Manifesto. It has proven to be the rock on which their success has been built. Perhaps Mr Geoghegan is the man to write the Irish Food Manifesto? He at least has the gumption to stand up for Irish restaurants when no sitting politicians will.

There is a general election coming. When you get the knock on the door, make sure to ask the candidate what they think about the death by a thousand cuts inflicted on the Irish restaurant sector. 

One of the reasons we love to write about Irish restaurants is because Irish restaurateurs are so irrepressible. Times are hard, yet people still chase their dream to open a good restaurant and cook nice food for grateful customers. In Part 2 of this week’s Substack we introduce some of the new arrivals, who will all be very happy to see you and value your support.