ONE OF the State’s leading publicans’ representatives has warned of further pub closures unless supermarkets are prevented from selling cheap alcohol.
Val Hanley, a former president of the Vintners Federation of Ireland and a former mayor of Galway, blamed supermarkets for the demise of the pub business in Ireland.
He said the closure of the successful Cellar and Cuba bars in Galway was a direct result of cheaper prices at the supermarket tills.
The pubs, along with the Harvest off-licences, are part of the Jona Group which announced the closure of the outlets at the weekend after going into voluntary liquidation.
Mr Hanley also warned that the Irish pub industry would be killed off by supermarkets selling cheap alcohol.
“The pub business and independent off-licence business has taken an awful hammering in the last year. The big supermarkets have a monopoly on the price of alcohol and pubs cannot compete with it.
“They are able to go to the big breweries and get a great price. When you think of the volume they sell and the number of outlets they have in the country, their bargaining power is powerful and they can buy as a group.
Mr Hanley described the situation as an “anomaly” and said he had been in with the Government and “even the Taoiseach”.
“And it is sad to say for me as a Fianna Fáil party member and former Fianna Fáil mayor, that no one is listening,” he said. “For every 200 jobs that are created when a supermarket comes into town how many more are lost in smaller shops and pubs?
“It must have been a major factor when Cuba and the Cellar closed. Harvest was an independent chain and how are they supposed to compete with the big supermarkets when they can sell beer for less than a euro per bottle. That is less than the breweries are charging us per bottle.”
Mr Hanley claimed 10,000 jobs had been lost in the pub trade in the past three years and the Government had turned a blind eye to it. “The big fear is that 2011 will be nothing but bad news for the trade.”
The closure of the Galway pubs at the weekend resulted in 85 jobs being lost. John Grealish, a director of the group, said that since the start of the recession in June 2008, the sales in these businesses had fallen by between 20 and 50 per cent.