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Bakery to open restaurant

Bread 41, the popular Dublin City bakery, is undergoing a €265,000 revamp that will see it expand into a new premises next door, as well as open a new restaurant upstairs. bread41

The bakery, which is situated directly in front of Trinity College Dublin’s new business school under the Dart bridge, is owned by Eoin Cluskey who has used the months of the Covid-19 pandemic to make some significant changes to the business.

“We’ve expanded into the unit next door with a sort of lab concept with alternative sugars and grains. That’s been open for about 12 weeks. When Covid is done you’ll be able to walk in there and see the pastry room working. There’ll be a click-and-collet option there also.

Mr Cluskey is also in the process of opening a restaurant upstairs. “We were previously renting that unit as an office but we’ve taken that back since Covid hit,” he said.

Gibbons looks to Q3 recovery

The chief executive of Tourism Ireland has said he does not underestimate the size of the challenge ahead for the tourism industry but is hopeful that international travel will ngibbons1219

resume in the third quarter of this year.

Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, Niall Gibbons said the sector is facing "a very, very difficult picture moving forward".

Mr Gibbons said that Ireland has lost connections with ten of 24 North American and Canadian gateways as a result of the pandemic.

These include places such as Miami, Atlanta and Vancouver, which he said "represents an enormous amount of decline".

Mr Gibbons said there is "big" and pent-up demand among people to return to Ireland, and that there is a significant amount of pick-up by vaccinated Americans who want to travel.

However, he said trends show people are heading to Latin America and the Caribbean, and that a lot of golf tourists are "drifting to Scotland".

"It is quite clear there will be no recovery in the first half of this year, but we are hopeful of seeing recovery in the second half of the year," he said, adding that Tourism Ireland will work with international golf tour operators to drive business into the country later this year and into 2022.

Outdoor Dining Concessions to remain

Restaurants will be allowed to retain outdoor dining concessions unril the ebd of 2021 under plans advanced by Minister for Local Government Darragh O’Brien to boost the outdoorcafe0620 sector as lockdown restrictions ease.

Local authority fees for using street furniture outside hotels, restaurants and pubs will also be waived for the same period, the Minster told an Oireachtas committee. He also wants to scrap the requirement for planning permission to erect awnings and other coverings over outdoor tables and chairs.

Tifco earns €5.4m from Quarantine

Tifco hotel group is being paid over €5.4m for operating the Government’s mandatory hotel quarantine system. CROWNEPLAZA

Documents published by the Department of Health show the official value of the three-month contract award to the Tifco Hotel Group to operate the quarantine system for visitors to Ireland is €5,416,290.

The contract is subject to two possible extensions of one month each.

The documents reveal that 11 different hotel, travel, and event management operators made submissions to the department offering to provide quarantine facilities and other services.

The Department of Health ultimately directly negotiated and concluded a contract with Tifco without a formal tendering process after the group had demonstrated it could provide all the necessary services through its own resources or through sub-contractors.

New History Museum for Dublin

A new gallery commemorating Irish history during the 20th century is to be established at the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks in Dublin. collinsbks

Work is starting on the project this year and the new exhibition will be open in 2023 to coincide with the centenary of the foundation of the Irish Free State.

The new project aims to highlight the decade of centenaries from 2012-2023.

Minister for Culture Catherine Martin's department is contributing €2.2m to the initiative.

The centenaries programme for this year is also supported with a budget of €5m in current funding, which is an increase of €3m on last year's funding allocation.

The centenaries being commemorated this year include: