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For­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Mar­i­ano Browne, is warn­ing that em­ploy­ment loss­es in the bar and restau­rant sec­tor are an im­por­tant sig­nal, as he re­spond­ed to re­ports of mul­ti­ple clo­sures in the leisure.

“The sig­nal is that it’s be­com­ing more dif­fi­cult to sur­vive, and this is just the be­gin­ning,” he said. Browne not­ed that while the num­bers be­ing bandied about clo­sures re­main a small frac­tion of rough­ly 25,000 busi­ness es­tab­lish­ments na­tion­wide, falling re­tail de­mand has broad­er im­pli­ca­tions.