Our probe in to almost 2,500 companies operating in the hospitality sector in Ireland revealed that a large percentage were displaying signs consistent with business failure - amongst the worst affected were Ireland's pubs.

Our stress test of 945 pubs (43% of all pubs trading in the country), showed that 49% were seen to be High Risk and in danger of collapse.

A further 20% of pubs were seen to be Medium Risks with the remaining 31% deemed to be Low Risk

As part of the same survey we also stress tested a randomly selected sample of Irish hotels and restaurants.

Of the 990 restaurants tested we found that 494 were rated as being at a high risk of failure. 183 were a medium risk and the remaining 313 were deemed to be low risk.

Hotels did not fare much better with 263 of the 547 tested showing up as high risk and a further 149 being a medium risk.

An overall view of the hospitality sector this year reveals that it has accounted for 6% of closures and 6.5% of start-ups in 2013.