Dublin hairdresser: “Mid-April reopening, if we’re lucky”

A Dublin hairdresser has predicted that it could be “mid-April, if we’re lucky,” before salons are allowed to reopen their doors to clients.

Dylan Bradshaw, of Dylan Bradshaw Hair Salon on South William Street, was speaking on Newstalk Breakfast this morning following comments from An Tánaiste Leo Varadkar yesterday that hairdressers will open “much later than March 5.”

Mr. Bradshaw is even more pessimistic, saying that “We’re talking about mid-April, if we’re lucky, to get reopen. We closed in late March last year, and we’ve been open four-and-a-half months over that period.”

Adamant that hair salons remain a safe environment for clients, Mr. Bradshaw added: “I think as an industry we’ve proven ourselves a very health-conscious environment for people to come and get their hair done and their services provided. Give us the environment we can control, and we can take care of business and the client. It’s as simple as that.”

Hairdressers have now been closed since mid-December and Mr. Bradshaw feels that salons had little to do with the spike in Covid-19 cases around the Christmas period and into January. “Let’s call it out honestly – the reason why the numbers blew up is because people were mixing socially, it wasn’t because hair salons and businesses didn’t take responsibility for what they were doing,” he said.

Mr. Varadkar said yesterday that a modified Living with Covid plan is being worked on and could become public knowledge in two weeks time. Current Level 5 restrictions are due to expire on March 5.

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