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THE IRISH HOTELS Federation (IHF) has released a statement today describing “limitations” in how updated public health advice is communicated by government to industries that need to reflect this new advice.
The IHF also said it had “no role in organising or providing clearance” for the infamous Oireachtas Golf Society event in Galway on Wednesday that has prompted resignations and engulfed the government in turmoil.
On Thursday night, the Irish Examiner broke the story that around 80 people attended an Oireachtas Golf Society function in Clifden, Co Galway. TDs, Senators, an EU Commissioner and a Supreme Court judge were among those in attendance.
As the story evolved into a full-blown scandal on Friday, the IHF released a statement saying it had sought clarification from the Department of Tourism on indoor gatherings prior to the event.
On Tuesday, the government unveiled a range of fresh guidance on social gatherings and sport, as well as powers to enforce public health measures following concerns about a spike in the number of cases of the coronavirus in recent weeks.
The mass gatherings section of the new guidance outlines that indoor gatherings and events are now limited to six people from no more than three households. However, there is an exception for weddings for the time being.
Prior to Tuesday, up to 50 people have been permitted to attend indoor weddings, guidelines which now remains in place as the government said they wish to review the matter.
In its statement today, the IHF said it works closely with government to ensure “robust operational procedures and industry guidelines are in place and effectively communicated” during the crisis.
It works with the Department of Tourism and Fáilte Ireland to inform hotels and guesthouses of their public health responsibilities, including changes as and when they happen.
It said: “The IHF provides general guidance, and at all times we encourage hotels and guesthouses to comply with the required guidelines. We do not have any role in enforcing, monitoring or approving the implementation of this guidance or operational guidelines.”
The IHF said that when updated public health guidance is announced at government press conferences, there is a “time-lag” in how this updated advice should be reflected in the operational guidelines for the sector.
“As a result of this time-lag, there is an established process in place with the Department of Tourism for when changes are announced in that the status quo remains in place until updated guidance is issued by the Department,” it said.
“This means that the new advice does not come into effect for tourism businesses until updated guidance is developed and communicated through the Department. This time-lag can create significant challenges, given public expectations around newly announced government advice.”
According to the IHF, such a situation took place this week in relation to the golf event.
On Wednesday morning, it said the organisers of the event contacted the IHF in relation to the updated guidelines announced the day before.
At that time, it said no update had been provided by the Department of Tourism. Later that day, however, it said the department informed the IHF that the existing guidance remained until clarification was received from the Department of Health.
This existing guidance allowed for a maximum of 50 people at an indoor gathering.
The IHF said it then informed all hotels and guesthouses that the existing guidance would remain until clarification was provided.
It wasn’t until Friday that the IHF received interim guidance from Fáilte Ireland, which included the provision of gatherings being restricted to six people indoors – with an exception for weddings.
I don’t work in the tourism or leisure trade, I’m not a government official, I’m not a Supreme Court judge – in fact not one of the ‘elite’ at all… I’m a stay at home mum and even I know that you’d have to be deaf, dumb AND blind not to have known the new regulations.
The clarifications, constant media coverage and videos released made sure of that.
If they’re trying to give the hotel and attendees an ‘out’ then this won’t cut it.
@Miss T: well said but not even the new regulations , really they broke the original regulations as had ten to a table , and more than 50 in a room and did not include staff within numbers. Also reports of shaking hands , and what time did the event finish?
@Miss T: There is nothing wrong with being a stay at home mom- don’t say ‘even’ I know… you knew and so should have these people running the country
@Bountyop: I stand corrected. I don’t normally lessen my role as having worked for many many years in stressful jobs – I know that being a stay at home mum is one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever undertaken. I think I just meant even I, an ordinary Joe Soap, knew.
@Miss T: Well put
@Miss T: As a stay at home mum believe me you are more valuable than those muppets.
Regardless of this ridiculous excuse to try somehow lessen the matter, this wasn’t your average citizen asking for clarification for the hotel based on government guidance. This was in fact members of the current Oireachtas, Members of RTE who echo their messages and members of the judiciary writing the laws and ensuring that guidance is legal. Then you have a cabinet member who was part of the team formulating these updated rules and a high-profile EU representative attending days later. I hope the fall out from this brings down this sham of a government and the Green Party have the conscience to pull the plug on it before they are decimated
@Fionn Condren: there are no excuses, from an epidemiologist pov 3 days of transmission could traslate into dozens of deaths. Minister for Health and Turism need to step down if they consider that 3 days time lag between departments is an acceptable excuse to clear personal responsability among the privileges within a pandemic that it has taken the live of 1.777 Irish people so far.
@Fionn Condren: The judiciary don’t write the laws, they apply and interpret them. The legislature write them.
@Fionn Condren: Fully agree with you. As it was put plainly to a group of us, the whole country was put on lock down because of this pandemic. If all the people at golfgate who are up there in running the country & beyond felt it was ok for 80 of them to meet in a room & shake hands & break the restrictions, do they know something we dont know. If there was a real pandemic & they feared for the lives of themselves & their loved ones do we really think that they would have risked it. I dont think so. Again we are been played.
Of course they hadn’t why would a reputal hotel have to ask the HFI advise.a good GM would have known the regulations.
Regardless of them following new rules or the old ones there was still a breach a sit down dinner for a function like this is on par with a wedding , if this was the case and permitted why haven’t we seen up to 200 guests at weddings all along or other large functions?
It’s total hypocrisy to say otherwise, these people tried to bend the rules and got caught now must pay the price for their lack of judgement which is ironic when they all hold such important decision making positions of power, ignorance is no defence M’Lord for any of us despite how self important we believe we are in our own heads
I’m the IHF are not a statutory body and it’s up to individual hotels to check the government rules themselves.
@Conall: The organising body was made up of members of the Oireachtas. Why would those who compiled the guidelines check with the IHF? Could someone simply not have asked a relevant minister? Maybe even a minister who was going to be at the event?
@Anne Marie Devlin: I suppose if I’m a hotel/club in the current climate it is my business to know the guidelines. When someone from some committee says they want to book an event I ask “how many”. When they say “80″, I say “too many”. If more turn up than are permitted, then I don’t let them in. It’s how clubs/hotels operate with fire regulations.
Time for an election.
@Patrick Agnew: Patrick Time for Real Political Reform.
@Patrick Agnew: in a pandemic? Would be very long queues and general attitudes to large crowds would affect voter turnout. Would affect the SF vote more than others. It would be interesting alright
@Hector Son: are ya kidding me? Since when have over 70yr olds been voting for SF?
FFG have only held their grip on power for so long because of the grey vote. They’d be wiped out if an election was held like that now.
@JusticeForJoe: disagree , the grey voters are the ones that understand the value of their vote. The 20 somethings do not have the attention span to queue 2/3 hours to cast something as intangible as a vote.
@Hector Son: Ok mate. Sure thing
@JusticeForJoe: who would be voting for SF or SD seeing as their councillors don’t care about the people and just go on foreign holidays to a country not on the green list. On top of that the SF leader and finance spokesman showed their lack of care for the people with their trip to another country to go to a funeral that photos prove they were not socially distancing
@Hector Son: It’s just a pity that we don’t have modern technology that would let people vote for things digitally, just like we can manage the other 95% of our lives online.
I wonder why that is?
@John Buckley: My god the attempts to besmirch SF are so cringey these days. They must be doing very well if that’s the best you can do
@Hector Son: That’s a great way to encourage young people to vote. Good man. How disrespectful of you to say that about the future of our great country.
@Nosmo King: ……its true though
@JusticeForJoe: what is cringe worthy is the deluded belief of SF members that they will get into power. No party wants to go into coalition with them and they will never have enough votes to go alone.
@Joeber Wallace: yea, one that would guarantee anonymous votes, transperncy, immune to fraud, hacking or denial of network service during voting window.
It’s not as simple as a journal opinion poll
@JusticeForJoe: I suppose that if you’re ever contacted as a witness to a crime, you can check with them first to see if you should talk to the Gardai.
@John Buckley: You seem to have completely missed the fact that Irish politics has changed now. SF are the next government in waiting. People are willing to vote for them now and, crucially, they know that others are too, which helps them feel their vote could actually make a difference now. Them getting on to the main opposition bench in the last election really shouldn’t have escaped your notice, even if you’re ready to dismiss that result for the usual reasons.
@Conall: Are you literally saying what you seem to be saying or am I missing some hidden reference about an army council of overlords? Why not just say “SF/IRA”? Has that started to get a bit old?
Didn’t seem to bother the electorate much last time anyway
@Hector Son: Also… I said the grey vote was in favour of FFG… and I’m just realising now that you disagreed because they “understand the value of their vote”. I’m confused. You seem to be agreeing with me without realising it. That’s funny stuff man. Little bit awkward, but funny
Each and every one of the attendees knew full well the event was in contravention of the laws that They implemented.
They could have walked out at any time in protest but didn’t.
The hotel management were put in a very bad position of “damned if you do or damned if you don’t” with so many big names.
The responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of the organisers and attendees.
They should all resign from office immediately.
@Michael Clinton: The hotel is definitely culpable too. They facilitated the event. They let the numbers in. They took the wall down for the speeches. They allowed the table plan with ten at a table. Yes the attendees should have turned at the door when they realised it would be in breach of regulations, but the hotel is the business that facilitated the breaches.
@NotMyIreland: Blame the hotel who also breeched the gudlines , but do not deflect from the fact A government minister, A European Commissioner ,elected public representives , Judiciary attended this farce. The timeline of Phil Hogan is open to scrutiny after the timeline he gave is now open to questions. As a citizen of this country Hogan is obliged to follow guidelines that was supported and implemented by his own party.
@Donal Desmond: Don’t get me wrong. The blame lies with everyone involved, most especially with our public representatives for breaking guidelines introduced by their respective parties in government, and the hotel management for facilitating the event and putting the service staff who had to work at it under undue health and safety risks.
@NotMyIreland:
I genuinely think the hotel staff were put under pressure.
It would have been a Damned if you do Damned if you dont with such heavy hitters there.
@Michael Clinton: The staff yes, management possibly, but then part of management is tough decisions. There is no excuse for management not making the right decisions. I’d love to know how they would have been damned if they stuck to the regulations and cancelled the event?
The ‘excuse’ used by one of the participants, a senior officer of the Seanad, He tried to use the excuse of ‘confusion’ between old and new regulations. Poor excuse. The Soirée broke the old regulations, never mind the new ones. These people are running the country. There’s no excuse. There’s resignation.
@Gerry Ryan deG: when the rest of us who are not public figures were confused by the updated guidelines we were quickly told by Michael Martin that the guidance was clear, jaysus these lads must really be thick as shite or need to hire new script writers to come up with plausible excuses and apologies (all of which mean absolutely nothing anyway). Once again #weareinthistogether unless you are a public representative/politician
Let’s get it trending. #GetHimOut
I own a hotel and that event broke the old rules not to mind the new ones. (50 cap at events no matter how many rooms used). In fairness to the IHF they made us full aware of the old regulations so they did all that they could.
I’d love to know did any of those invited have the discipline or integrity to decline the invite based on the new guidelines or did going on the lash “networking” with similar individuals mean more to them than their health, those in the hotel and general community. Also, who funded this junket? Shame on the lot of them – low lifes.
So do I wait for the updated guidance to arrive through my letterbox before I adhere to them? Is that what I am hearing here !!! Guidance is guidance. You don’t need to wait for the official updated guidelines to come through.
Şerously??????????
So the rules don’t apply when they say they issue then? When do they apply I wonder?
If this is the case then they are telling us that the guidelines don’t apply anywhere or to anyyone. So by this they are saying the public are not expected to follow new rules if they are introduced as it takes them a while to issue guidelines for the rules.
What next?
This is ridiculous. Our small basketball club canceled its summer camp within an hour of the new government regulations coming out. If they can manage to follow the rules quckly, so can others. Use your brains and do the right thing.
@Seeking Truth: we also cancelled an outdoor event for weekend Sept 12/13 within an hour of the announcement after weeks of hard work organising it. Frustrating to do so as we ran a hugely successful and regulation compliant 3 day event over the August Bank Holiday weekend. Maybe we should have looked for clearer guidance in writing as we were confused
Are we expected to believe this event was booked the day before it took place? and that confusion as to whether the announced guidelines actually meant that more than 50 (including staff) were now allowed? What utter nonsense.
You can be sure as hell when the regulations are eased they adopt them straight away!
……and all the b0!!0× about 2 rooms….one room with a dividing screen for smaller groups
HOGAN YOU HAVE SOME (GOLF) Balls
Wow, this it honestly the first time I’ve ever seen a Journal comment thread were everyone’s in agreement!
That’s some monumental feck up by the government and their fellow trough feeders.
Time for reform.
@3 Week Diet: ….jeez we all know its time for reform, but where is it going to come from?
@Michael Murray: I don’t mean get one party out and another party in, nothing ever changes. I mean there needs to be a body overlooking the government with proper sanctions if they’re stepping over the line in any way.
Budgeting is somewhere it is really necessary. They’re getting ripped off in absolutely everything they do, like say construction, a normal company budget would come in 70% cheaper.
It’s all back handers etc I’m sure but that’s the type of thing there needs to be serious consequences for them in.
As to where it’s gonna come from?! God knows! Get one muppet out, another takes their place
@3 Week Diet: ….and that leaves you with an unelected body having the ultimate say…..wheres the democracy in that?
Did they not listen to the news
Everyone is focusing on the politicians but the hotel that hosted the event was equally at fault. It was their job to know whether the hotel was breaking the law or not. If I was a member of staff at that event I’d be talking to my union about suing them as they had a duty of care to me and that was clearly disregarded. Does anyone know what the hotels name is? I suggest everyone avoid them. And so what I’df they go to the wall over this. It’s of their own making.
No one does melodrama and over reaction quite like us Irish. This golf outing was wrong on many levels, insulting , reckless and so on. So many angry and frustrated reactions and justifiably so but here’s my point, nothing of any note will be done. We’re the hamsters on the wheel. Every now and then the wheel is changed but we just go round and around.
Until there is an actual political upheaval in this Country, a systemic and fundamental change in how this country is run and who is run by, these incidents will keep happening. Mass over runs on hospital construction, an inept social welfare system, hugely over priced road construction. I could go on and on and it’s all overseen by either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael. Until a working alternative is available nothing will ever change
@Ross O’Donnell: that’s what we tried to have when everyone voted for sin Fein in the election. Unfortunately too many people gave them second and third preference votes. And the old boys club slithered back into power. The only way to get a change here is to vote sin Fein and don’t give second or third preference votes!!
I’m sure that the senior politicians would expect that an hotel or an organisation would have taken proper precautions before going.
I believe donie cassidy invited loads of his cronies and that bumped up the number.
If you go to a any event you would expect that the organisers would do it properly.
So now we all need rule changes in writing before we have to implement them
Whoever dares insult our intelligence with that excuse needs to be fired. Outrageous.
I wonder how many if them will present with the virus??? None
Why is there never a name attached to Irish Hotels Federation statements. The President is a Ms Elaina Fitzgerald who runs an inherited hotel in Adare co Limerick. The Woodlands. She is very quick to come on radio if its a chance to promote her business. Although she disgraced herself 3 weeks ago when she stated on a radio programme that her staff were not compelled to wear masks. Not a mention or though for the welfare or care of paying guests.
When the story broke during the week, no radio station could get IHF to come on air. Issuing statements is pathetic
Ohhh I get it now…. so there was a special ‘time lag’ with the new rules when it comes to an event for a Government organisation ?
I thought for a min that they just ignored the rules cos it doesnt apply to them as they are special people. Phew… it was the time lag…
Which of the esteemed guests said the IHF was involved?
Did they wait for 3 days to close down Laois Offaly and Kildare, jaysus what a lame excuse. Insult to our intelligence.
Tis always somebody else’s fault
Amazing that nobody is producing copies of e-mails to/from the Federation or Department and everyone is anonymous
have your say