Eimear Killian, owner of Builín Blasta Café and Retail in Spiddal, Connemara, has been elected president of the Restaurants Association of Ireland (RAI), the first president to represent Galway and the Gaeltacht, a result that matters to association and institute professionals as a trade body hands its presidency to a working operator from a new region.

The RAI is the representative body for restaurants, cafés, gastropubs and other food-led businesses in Ireland, with 2,500 members. It does not publish commercial financials.

Builín Blasta Café and Retail is a café and retail business in Spiddal, Connemara.

Outgoing president Seán Collender was recognised for his work on restoring the 9 per cent VAT rate and promoting culinary tourism.

Adrian Cummins, chief executive of the RAI, said, “Eimear brings valuable experience as a hospitality business owner and a strong understanding of the challenges facing our members.”

Eimear Killian said, “Having worked in hospitality throughout my career and now running my own business in Spiddal, I understand first-hand the challenges facing our members.”

The change of president follows the association’s biggest policy win in years, which shifts the agenda from survival to sector health.

The 9 per cent VAT rate for food-led hospitality became permanent from 1 July 2026, according to RTE. Food led hospitality employment still fell by almost 20,000 jobs over the past year, a 14.7 per cent drop, with 56 per cent of businesses reporting labour costs above 40 per cent of turnover, according to Hospitality Ireland.

For the sector, a president who runs a rural business gives the association a leadership voice for members outside the main urban markets. For the sector’s trade bodies specifically, a campaign win followed by a leadership change tests whether a new agenda can hold members together once the headline issue is settled.

The association now has to turn the VAT result into measures on labour costs and employment.

Whether the new president converts the VAT win into progress on those costs, rather than treating it as the end of the campaign, will indicate how far a trade body can set its next agenda after a major success across the sector.

Source: Hospitality Ireland / RTE