Around 160,000 hospitality workers will not return to their jobs before mid-summer due to ongoing restrictions, it has been claimed.
Taoiseach Micheal Martin cited concern about uncertainties surrounding new variants of coronavirus and high numbers of infections as he gave the date for potentially reopening the sector.
But Elaina Fitzgerald Kane, president of the Irish Hotels Federation, said the tourism community was shattered to learn of the tentative timeframe for reopening.
She warned: The implications of the announcement are huge in terms of confidence in the survival of Irish tourism.
Our people are our greatest asset and yesterday 160,000 tourism people who have temporarily lost their jobs learned that their employment is unlikely to be restored until mid-summer.
This is about real people and real livelihoods.
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Speaking on Saturday, the Taoiseach said he does not foresee reopening pubs before the middle of the summer.
Mr Martin added public health authorities want him to stick with the current restrictions until April and then reflect on the months ahead. The Government is expected to update its Living With Covid plan this week.
Ms Fitzgerald Kane said her members are frustrated and anxious.
Prior to the pandemic, 270,000 peoples livelihoods were supported by tourism and 70% of these were outside of Dublin.
She added: In some cases, whole communities are built around tourism.
We are calling for an urgent review of the existing supports for the tourism and hospitality sector. If the all-important summer period is being eroded, additional supports are now required to safeguard businesses and the livelihoods they support until society reopens and the sector and wider tourism industry can recover.
She also asked the Government to intervene with the banks to ensure they have appropriate support and engagement processes in place for businesses and team members until Covid-19 has been suppressed.
Ms Fitzgerald Kane said: Our community have been deeply affected over a prolonged period of time.
Failure to provide adequate supports now will have long-term implications that could take years to repair.
Meanwhile, musicians, entertainers and stage crew face a mortgage and loan crisis as the ban on live shows reaches its first anniversary.
The Music & Entertainment Association of Ireland, which represents around 5,000 struggling performers, road crew and others, said workers in the industry are at greater risk of losing their businesses and homes unless systemic payment breaks are reactivated.
A survey carried out by MEAI shows that 21.2% of its members are struggling to repay their mortgages and 39.2% are having trouble repaying their business loans, while 58% experience difficulty in paying household bills.
Around 20% have had to seek help for mental health issues.
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Spokesman Matt McGranaghan said: The sector is bracing itself for another year of not being allowed to work, with restrictions on numbers for gatherings indoor and outdoors set to go beyond the summer.
MEAI is urging the Government to reintroduce systemic payment breaks to help those who are struggling to meet their repayments at this time. The industry has been under continuous lockdown since March 12 last year and will be one of the last sectors to reopen, which the organisation said is now unlikely to happen until next year.
Three cases of the potentially more infectious Brazilian mutation have been detected in Ireland.
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They are being followed up by public health teams and enhanced measures have been put in place.