Restaurateur Alan O'Reilly has said his business will just have to "batten down the hatches" to get through the winter, after his electricity bill jumped from under €3,000 to more than €38,000.

Mr O'Reilly is the co-owner of Kelly and Coopers gastropub in Blackrock, Co. Dublin, which opened in 2018.

He has been in the industry for 40 years and said in that time, he has never experienced spiralling costs like this.

Last Friday, he received a bill from Electric Ireland that said he owed €38,282.91 for the billing period September to November. His previous bill was for just €2,945.57.

Mr O'Reilly said he called Electric Ireland when he got the bill and they assured him the "meter reading was right".

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'I'm still talking to them at the minute. It is tough, it is going to be really really tough. Business was down anyway on last year," he said.

Mr O'Reilly added that it wasn't just his electricity bill that rocketed.

"My gas bill went from €1,500 to €5,500 for a month, not two months," he said.

Mr O'Reilly said restaurants usually rely on strong business over Christmas to get them through the slower months of January and February. However, this year he has noticed that business in December is down.

"It is not as busy as it was last year. You have to realise that people were all caged in for most of last year and then they were let out at Christmas.

"Most people in our business rely on Christmas to bring us through January because January can be really bleak."

He said a lot of the money he is expected to make this month will be going towards paying off electricity bills.

"You just have to batten down the hatches, keep the lights off. Next year, we're probably going to have to look at trading hours and cut them down," he said.

"The next bill is due on January 23. We're trying to work out what that is going to be. It could be €58,000, we just don't know.

"I got a letter from Electric Ireland saying that there was a price increase due on December 1 but they've put it off till next year.

"So that could be January, or the middle of the year."