Re-opening day for NI's wet pubs

Non-food serving pubs are re-opening today (Wednesday) across Northern Ireland for the first time since lockdown.

But the timing of the move the day after further household restrictions were imposed, is not without controversy.

Restrictions on households were extended to Northern Ireland as a whole on Tuesday evening.

That means there can be no mixing of households indoors, with some exemptions, while no more than six people from two households can meet in a garden.

Previously, the measures only applied to Belfast and Ballymena in Co Antrim.

The reopening of so-called wet pubs was pushed back on several occasions by the Executive.

Owners and industry supporters said at the time that they needed to open sooner rather than later to save their businesses from closure.

Pubs serving food were able to reopen at the start of July.

Northern Ireland's leaders acknowledged on Tuesday that Stormont's latest Covid-19 messaging had become confused.

Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill accepted that introducing region-wide restrictions on domestic gatherings just hours before the reopening of pubs that do not serve food appeared "conflicting'', while First Minister Arlene Foster conceded the moves could be seen as "counter-intuitive''.

Both leaders insisted there was sound scientific evidence to justify the contrasting steps.

They stressed that pubs provided more controlled environments where social distancing and infection control measures could be regulated and enforced.

The ministers said the data indicated that spiralling infection rates were linked to transmission in homes.

"I put my hands up and say I think it is actually a confusing message that you are moving towards opening up a sector,'' Ms O'Neill said.

Mrs Foster added: "I think it's counter-intuitive for people when we say to them 'don't mix in your own homes, but you're still able to go out to restaurants and other hospitality venues'.

"There's a perfectly good reason behind that and that is because actually the virus is spreading in people's own homes because there isn't the same mitigations present in homes.''

• wet pubs