Half of Dublin pubs had sales of €1m - report

More than half of all Dublin pubs had net sales of over €1 million in 2003, according to a report on the industry released today.

However, less than 3 per cent of pubs outside the capital had a similar turnover. The Survey of Licenced Premises in Ireland was carried out for Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI) by Dublin City University economics lecturer, Mr Anthony Foley.

Average turnover for licenced premises last year was €383,377, up over 55 per cent in the four-year period from the 1999 figure of €245,982.

The report highlights the disparity between the size, employment levels and turnover of Dublin pubs compared with those outside the capital.

Nationally, 54 per cent of surveyed licenced premises had an annual turnover of less than €200,000. However, this group accounted for only 12 per cent of all sales.

More than a third of all turnover was achieved by only 5 per cent of licenced premises - with an average turnover in this group of €1.25 million. The vast majority of these were in Dublin.

Mr Richard Dunne, chairman of DIGI, denied there were too few pubs in Ireland. He said there was one alcohol licence for every 400 people in the State, whereas in Britain this ratio was one to every 1,000 people.

Although the survey was carried out before the introduction of the smoking ban, Mr Dunne described the impact as significant.

The survey of 710 of the more than 11,500 licenced premises found that employment in the industry has risen by 28.6 per cent since the last survey of the sector in 1999. Over 100,000 people are now employed in the licenced trade.

Of these, 47,885 were full-time 42,606 part-time and the remainder casuals, working less than five hours a week.

Nine out of ten pubs are independently owner or family run businesses, with only 7.8 per cent operating as part of a chain.

The ESRI assisted with gathering the research data.