Habic reminds Government of safe salon environment

The Hair and Beauty Industry Confederation (Habic) has responded to the news that salons won’t be allowed to reopen until late April at the earliest.

In an interview on radio show Newstalk Breakfast, the Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said that non-essential retail and hairdressers will not be given the green light to reopen until at least the end of next month or early May.

Ireland is currently on Level 5 of the country’s Plan for Living with Covid-19, with the current restrictions due to be reviewed on 5 April. The hair and beauty industry has been closed since Christmas Eve, after reopening on 1 December following a six-week lockdown.

The Tánaiste said that the Government is now looking at 5 April for easing the 5km travel restriction, allowing people to meet up outdoors for activities such as limited sports training and the return of construction.

“The kinds of things that we're considering for 5 April, and I do mean considering, they are quite limited. It will be a relaxation of the 5km rule, allowing more outdoor activities and also things like construction being allowed to go back.”

While he acknowledged that “people are missing their barber and their hairdresser”, he said that  the reopening of personal services will not be happening on 5 April. “Realistically, the earliest you’d be talking about some of those kind of things would be at the end of April, more likely early May.”

He explained that the  Government will look at four criteria — new variants, the rollout of the vaccine, the number of new cases and hospitalisations — before any restrictions are eased.

Following the Tánaiste’s interview, Habic posted a number of Covid-related statistics on its social media.

“Since the start of this pandemic there has been seven clusters or outbreaks linked to the personal grooming industry.out of a total of 13,087,” it noted. “We have been closed for 31 weeks out of the last 52, with an estimated loss of €1.2bn in services and products.

“In 2020 our research notes an estimated 6.8 million services took place during the time we were permitted to open. That is 6.8 million people, which demonstrates how much care and attention our industry has taken to provide a controlled environment. Salons, spas and barber shops provide very controlled environments. While the controlled environments of salons are shuttered, the shadow economy is booming.”