Business managers and workers say the latest round of restrictions which came into force on Tuesday made things more difficult, and that any help from the Government in the form of existing or future supports will be welcome.
In Cork, those involved in the hospitality and entertainment sectors are looking forward to a busy Christmas but say it will be nothing like the festive seasons seen up to and including that of 2019.
For musicians and bands, for example, activity has taken a significant hit since March of last year and it's been a rollercoaster ride ever since.
"We would have been out four or five times a month," Conor O'Brien of the Conor Ocean Band said of the pre-pandemic times.
"Pubs haven't come back at all. We've played once in a pub since 2020, and that was outdoors. There's very little happening in pubs or places where you can sell yourself and that's a big part of the music industry, playing in pubs so you can get the weddings. Everything else is pretty much postponed, or scaled back."
He said it's been a "tough" time and while he was relatively lucky as he had just finished a degree and has been teaching music, others have been kicking their heels.
"There's a lot of musicians out there at the moment doing delivery work with their vans."
He also said that while any Government supports are welcome, "they in no way took people's expenses into account".
For the coming weeks and months, he would like more certainty: "When the market gets nervous, a lot of things get cancelled. I had two cancellations last weekend, two cancellations this weekend and that's because of the uncertainty over the last week or two. So, all in all, I don't think there'll be a whole lot going on in January, February, March, April."
Paul Walsh said that the first lockdown hit businesses like his 3 Little Piggies café hard. "It had recovered during the summer, obviously outdoor seating helped a lot with City Hall allowing people to take up more space... and it was a nice enough summer, that did help and numbers were good during the summer.
"Obviously now, again coming into the winter, people are back indoors, the weather is deteriorating and with people back working from home again, we can see numbers dropping. Thankfully not as bad as before, but they are dropping again."
The hotel sector has also seen much change recently, as Sandra Murphy of the Trigon Hotel Group, which includes the city centre Metropole Hotel in its Cork portfolio, pointed out.
"From our perspective, the big change that we saw from a business impact was not actually the restrictions but when it was announced for people to reduce their social contacts. That's when we saw a huge reduction with regard to Christmas parties and staff parties and corporate parties. Literally within a couple of days, all of those were cancelled. That wasn't a restriction change, it was just people changing their behaviour.
"So, I suppose in line with that, people have changed their plans for this Christmas and what we're seeing is smaller groups, maybe groups who work together, family, friends, choosing to dine together instead, as opposed to the big Christmas party," she said.
"The differences are huge compared to two years ago because traditionally in hotels and restaurants and bars you'd have the really large Christmas parties and Christmas functions. Now we haven't had those for two years, but from an industry perspective we've become very good at adapting our business, moving very quickly.
"Our key priority is to keep people in jobs, keep people working and also we're very aware of the fact that any changes that are made are made in the interests of public health and our priority is to protect our staff, to protect our guests and to make people safe in our environment. While we've changed our business and it's not the Christmas that we're used to, that we've done for many years, we're just trying to make the most of it once again this year."
The sector has been lobbying Government for more help, she said, and the fact that the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme is to remain in place is welcome.
John Styles, general manager of The Secret Garden nightclub at the popular Rearden's venue on Washington Street said the subsidy "is a huge benefit for the sector" and, "without it we'd certainly see a lot of the venues go under".
He said it's been a "quite challenging" couple of weeks. "From the shift from where we were a couple of weeks back, with the jazz weekend and Halloween we were able to trade late and it felt like we were on the right track, unfortunately we're back into restrictions again, as you can see here restrictions in a nightclub mean your numbers are reduced considerably, which makes it challenging.
"For staff as well, we need a lot more staff on the venue. Overall, challenging is the only way you can describe it, but still open."
Taxi driver James Fitzgerald said that while business has picked up in recent months, after they were "out of commission" for about six months last year, many drivers have pulled out of the business.
"There don't seem to be as many taxis on the road as was there two years ago," he said.
"Nighttime is different now because in the old days the nightclubs would be open until three or four o'clock in the morning. Now with the new restrictions everything closes at 12 o'clock.
"So what you get now is a massive amount of people coming out at 12 o'clock with the result that it's almost impossible for an hour to get a taxi to come home, you know, before they'd be coming out staggered over a period of a couple of hours.
"Of course it means we're home at half-past twelve now where before it was four o'clock."
