{"id":18523,"date":"2025-08-19T19:22:51","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T23:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2025\/08\/19\/restaurants-association-calls-for-return-of-9-vat-rate\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T19:22:51","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T23:22:51","slug":"restaurants-association-calls-for-return-of-9-vat-rate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2025\/08\/19\/restaurants-association-calls-for-return-of-9-vat-rate\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurants Association calls for return of 9% VAT rate"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Restaurants Association of Ireland, supported by economic research from economist Tony Foley, today launched a significant report making the case for the restoration of the 9% VAT rate for food services and addressing recent criticisms of the policy measure.<\/p>\n

The Restaurants Association of Ireland said it rejects some recent commentary and claims questioning the desirability of restoring the 9% rate.<\/p>\n

It said the restaurant sector has faced significant cost increases from market-priced inputs and Government induced costs, with independent assessments confirming these pressures.<\/p>\n

Small firms dominate the sector, with 76.6% of hospitality enterprises employing between one and nine people, it said.<\/p>\n

“These firms are particularly vulnerable to market and policy shocks – just 0.4% or 73 out of 20,213 hospitality enterprises are considered large businesses or food chains,” it added.<\/p>\n

Recent data has shown declining food services sales volume in 2025, weak lending to restaurants, and underperforming tourism related restaurant activity.<\/p>\n

“The sector is not booming, and margins are under extreme pressure,” it stressed.<\/p>\n

The report emphasises that food services are a cost-of-living issue for the wider population and the restoration of the 9% rate is justifiable in both a macroeconomic context and a strategic economic development context.<\/p>\n

Even with a 9% VAT rate, the hospitality sector would continue to contribute significantly to the economy.<\/p>\n

The association said the CSO Monthly Services Index shows food services sales volume and value are declining in 2025.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the launch of the report, Adrian Cummins, the CEO of the Restaurants Association of Ireland said the 9% VAT rate is critical for thousands of restaurants and caf\u00e9s across Ireland.<\/p>\n

“Businesses have built their financial planning around its promised return, and any delay or uncertainty risks undermining that planning,” Adrian Cummins said.<\/p>\n

“The financial model for food businesses is broken and without the reinstatement of the 9% VAT rate many just simply will not survive,” he said.<\/p>\n

“With 99.6% of food businesses in Ireland classified as SMEs, the Government must honour its commitment to the 9% VAT rate and safeguard more than 20,000 enterprises and the 220,000 people they employ,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Only 73 of these businesses or just 0.4% are considered large companies. Supporting SMEs is critical for the sustainability of our sector and the wider economy,” he added.<\/p>\n

Anthony Foley, Emeritus Associate Professor of Economics at DCU and economic researcher on the report, said the sector plays a significant role in both regional and national employment and economic activity.<\/p>\n

“However, its business model has been severely undermined by rising labour and input costs, much of which stem from government policies,” he noted.<\/p>\n

“Without a supportive measure like 9% VAT the sector is like to face a substantial decline based on market forces and non-viability at current prices. In addition, 9% VAT supports ordinary consumers as well as thousands of small enterprises,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Restaurants Association of Ireland, supported by economic research from economist Tony Foley, today launched a significant report making the case for the restoration of the 9% VAT rate for food services and addressing recent criticisms of the policy measure. The Restaurants Association of Ireland said it rejects some recent commentary and claims questioning the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}