"'All they want is fair support' Outcry from restaurateurs in Ireland as 600 close doors"

Blazing Salads, Dillingers, Assassination Custard and Brasserie Sixty Six in Dublin, Church Lane and Sage in County Cork, and Barnacles in Galway.

- Lisa O'Carroll

These are just some of the most recent additions to the list of more than 600 restaurants that have been forced to close in Ireland in the last year in what is being seen as a growing crisis for the country's high street and tourist offering.

A pioneering veggie and vegan spot, Blazing Salads had been open for 37 years, surviving multiple economic downturns as well as the pandemic, only to shut up shop, blaming a combination of inflation, a rise in VAT and customers working from home.

The Restaurants Association of Ireland (RAI) says an average of two restaurants, cafes or other food-led businesses are closing every day in a blow to the country's independent hospitality industry. On Tuesday, the owners of restaurants, cafes and pubs marched in protest to the Irish parliament in frustration.