The Taoiseach has dismissed suggestions that €1 will be added to the price of pints after the coronavirus pandemic.

It was suggested the hike would be introduced to help the sector but Leo Varadkar this morning said: "We won't be doing that anyway."

The Taoiseach also said that he hopes they can open pubs again before a vaccine is found.

This comes after Minister Simon Harris said on Sunday that he can't see how large gatherings can go ahead before the vaccine is rolled out.

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The Minister said said in the Sunday Independent: "What's not going to come back quickly are scenarios in which we can't safely socially distance.

© Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland/PA Wire Taoiseach Leo Varadkar speaking to media in the Conference Centre at Citywest Hotel, Dublin as preparations get under way for a Covid-19 isolation and step down facility

"So I can't see how people can be in packed pubs again as long as this virus is still with us and we don't have a vaccine or an effective treatment."

This led to the Licenses Vintners Association (LVA) of Ireland predicting that many pubs would never open again.

LVA Chief Executive Donall O’Keeffe said, “That is the absolute nightmare scenario for the entire pub sector. If that happens then most pub businesses in this country will be out of business for good.

© Gareth Chaney/Collins Minister for Health Simon Harris TD.

"The LVA and its members will absolutely support whatever measures are deemed necessary in the interests of public health, as we have done from the beginning of this crisis, but if closing pubs until 2021 is going to be necessary then it is essential that a pub specific support scheme is introduced.

"Otherwise there won’t be a pub industry in this country by the time a vaccine is found."

And this morning Economics Professor and adviser to the Central Bank, Alan Ahearne, forecasts that a €1 increase may be the only way out of the current economic crisis for restaurants and pubs and their thousands of employees.

Mr Ahearne - who worked alongside the late finance minister Brian Lenihan in 2009 and advised him on the bailout from the troika - said: “It does look like social distancing will be with us for a very, very, long time until the vaccine arrives.

“And it may be possible for restaurants to adopt different business models by taking tables out and surcharge ‘an extra €1 a pint or a Covid surcharge of €10 a meal’ to compensate for lower sales and to make up some of the losses made during the crisis.

“In some sectors, employment growth will be quite quick.

"But on the other extreme, tourism, when will we start to see domestic tourists or tourists from abroad coming back here?”

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