Northern Ireland public transport strikes: Hospitality group fears more strikes by Unite, GMB and Siptu will destroy day-time trade during Christmas period

Her group owns leading hospitality outlets in Belfast such as the Merchant Hotel, Bullitt Hotel, The Dirty Onion, The National, Little Wing Pizzerias and Jenny Watts in Bangor and The Hillside in Hillsborough.

Trade unions Unite, GMB and Siptu said bus and train drivers employed by TransLink are striking over what they say is a “pay freeze” which amounts to a real-terms 11% pay cut.

"We'll definitely see an impact from these further strikes,” Sorcha told the News Letter.

"On the last Friday strike (1 December) we were down across the board compared to the previous year. Bookings held up pretty well but our businesses that depend more on walk-in business, some of them were done by maybe 40% on the prior year.”

"The type of trade from people who come into the city, do a little bit of shopping, have some lunch and then head home at home, that sort of daytime trade was really just non existent. In some of the bars, where we don't take bookings, we were down by as much as 40%.

"That is big, because it would be generally recognised in hospitality that December is when you make about a fifth (20%) of your annual turnover. So to lose almost half of your turnover on one of those big days is a big impact.”

Such losses are likely to hit their investment projects, she said.

“But for a small business that has been struggling and really looking forward to generating a little bit of profit in December, it could be really damaging."She added: "It's hard to see the purpose because there are no ministers in place, there is no Stormont Executive so what are they going to achieve?

"It feels like the only thing that striking is going to achieve is to damage hospitality and retail businesses. It's not going to achieve the goal of the Transport Workers. It's only going to damage other businesses."