NI VENUES AT BREAKING POINT CALL ON THE EXECUTIVE FOR URGENTLY NEEDED FULL RE-OPENING DATE

Currently music, conference & theatrical venues in Northern Ireland are subject to a minimum of a 1 metre social distancing requirement. Scotland, Wales & England’s venues are reopened with no restrictions on capacity, and venues in the Republic of Ireland will re-open on October 22nd with no restriction on capacity. In Northern Ireland a date is yet to be announced leaving uncertainty in the air. Now venues, staff and their performers are calling for a removal of the 1m social distancing requirement which is to be discussed as the NI Executive scheduled meet on the 23rd September.

The 1 metre requirements currently mean that the majority of venues have been unable to open, or that events have been cancelled due to the reduced 'all - seated' capacity which venue owners say aren’t financially viable. Joe Dougan of The Limelight in Belfast commented: “The last 18 months has been incredibly difficult for this industry. We were one of the first to close, and as expected we will likely be one of the last to re-open. In the interim we have suffered huge financial losses, and ongoing uncertainty. We urgently need our Executive to provide a full reopening date, remove social distancing requirements, and allow us to plan for the coming months. We are confident this can be done safely.”

However the Health Secretary Robin Swann has said ‘It would be irresponsible to rule out further circuit breaker lockdowns in Northern Ireland’ and Robert Doorman, the chair of GP’s has commented on Tuesday that ‘We see the effect of the pandemic…Unfortunately this disease claims lives, and we lost another 5 people yesterday and those are real people with real families. So we have to be very conscious that there are two sides to this argument. The health of people versus their livelihood’.

It is very clear that this disease continues to spread and precautions are being made; however as it continues Northern Ireland is now the only part of the UK & Ireland in which indoor venues are not currently open without capacity reductions, or have a full re-opening date scheduled. Talks of a full re-opening date, and a removal of social distancing requirements in venue spaces, are to be discussed at the Northern Ireland Executive meet on Thursday (23rd September)