The owners of a popular Waterford music school have said they are concerned for its future, as a result of the latest Covid-19 restrictions.
Sisters Jean and Ellenor Upton run the Waterford Centre of Music which is located at Tycor Business Park.
They closed the premises in mid-March during lockdown and just re-opened three weeks ago, with proper procedures in place.
However, they've described being at "their wits end" since Monday night's announcement that Waterford was to move to Level 3 restrictions.
Speaking to Damien Tiernan on Deise Today, Jean Upton said they panicked because they had no guidelines for their particular business and ended up sifting through guidelines for other groups to get clarity on what they needed to do.
“In the end, we just decided we had to close all of our group classes,” said Jean.
“It seemed to be what was going on throughout the country with stage schools, music schools, anything like this. So we are running at a fraction of our capacity now. We are open for private one-to-one private instrumental tuition and that's all we can do now at the moment.”
Ellenor said they didn't know how long they could continue on with so few students and so little of their business.
“There are no clear guidelines; we just don't know,” she said.
Jean said without their group classes, 100% of their cash flow has been wiped out.
“We came back to massive debt from the previous lockdown so we're kind of catching up on that. But we were okay. Our heads were above water. We were fine. Until yesterday.”
Jean told Damien Tiernan they will remain open as long as it is financially viable for them to do so.
Ellenor said it was great to get back to business and see all their young music students three weeks ago, smiling and happy to be back.
She said some of the children were in tears this week at news they couldn't go back to stage school.
They said they had been operating safely for the past three weeks, with perspex screens, podding students etc. and it was now so disheartening to be in the situation they are now in.
They added that the uncertainly also beyond the next three weeks was also extremely worrying...
Listen to the interview below...
To listen to the full programme this morning, click below...
