Mr. Padraig Cribben:

I welcome the opportunity to address the committee. I am accompanied by Ms Noreen O'Sullivan, who is our national president and a publican operating in Nenagh, County Tipperary. Much of what I have to say will echo many of the comments made by Ms Jones. I am here in my capacity as chief executive of the Vintners Federation of Ireland, which represents thousands of small businesses which run public houses outside Dublin. The federation has 4,000 members.
The theme of this meeting is legislative issues surrounding licensing laws. This discussion is most welcome because the current licensing situation in Ireland is putting small businesses at a distinct disadvantage. Changes to the laws surrounding how alcohol is sold, especially the removal of the groceries order in 2006, have been instrumental in driving a sea change in the way in which Irish people consume alcohol. In 1999, 60% of the volume of alcohol consumed in Ireland was bought in the on-trade and 40% was bought in the off-trade. By 2013, those ratios had been completely reversed. This has had a number of profound affects, including: the loss of thousands of jobs from the employment intensive on-trade; the health impact of encouraging drinking outside of a regulated environment; and the social impact resulting from isolation. The grim reality, which many of the members will recognise, is that the rural pub is slowly disappearing from the landscape.
Given that this committee is focused on the legislative issues surrounding licensing laws, I do not intend to dwell on the impact that the rural pub has on local communities and Ireland's tourism infrastructure. Instead, we will turn our attention to the specific policy issues that this committee must consider in the context of the Irish licensing regime. Members of the drinks industry in Ireland are very aware that there are issues surrounding the misuse of alcohol. We want to work with the Government to address these issues, not least because they are causing significant damage to the reputation of an industry which supports 92,000 jobs throughout the country. That is why members of the Support Your Local campaign – which includes pubs, restaurants, hotels and independent off-licences, as well as drinks suppliers throughout the country – issued a pledge in April 2014 to work with the Government on the implementation of meaningful policy measures to combat alcohol misuse. These measures involve addressing the sale of cheap alcohol; introducing a statutory ban on price-based advertising; and introducing statutory codes to regulate the merchandising of alcohol. I will now comment briefly on each of these.
As already stated, in 2006 the then Government removed the groceries order on all goods including alcohol. This was despite warnings from the drinks industry that it would lead to a situation in which supermarkets would follow the example of their UK counterparts and use alcohol as a footfall driver. Unfortunately, that prophecy has been proved absolutely correct. In light of the complete absence of real regulation on the way alcohol can be purchased in supermarkets, footfall is often driven through offering promotions relating to the quantity of alcohol purchased. Gone are the days of the humble six pack. Consumers are now offered slabs of beer and this beer is actually cheaper than water. To place this matter in context, I have in my possession a copy of an advertisement from a Sunday newspaper published prior to St. Patrick's Day 2005 in which a slab of beer is advertised at "cost price". The price quoted in the advertisement is €37.98. If one purchases today's edition of the Irish Independent, one will see that the same product is now being sold for €24. This places the effect of the abolition of the groceries order, as it relates to the sale of alcohol, into perspective.
The scale of the problem we are discussing can be difficult to articulate properly because the CSO does not collect information on promotions. However, industry figures show that 60% of the volume of alcohol sold in Ireland is now purchased in off-licences - mainly those attached to multiple supermarkets - and that 70% of off-licence alcohol is sold on promotion. This means that 42% of the volume of all alcohol sold in this country is bought at close to or below cost. In an attempt to make back margin on such sales, the price of bread, nappies, milk and other such products must be increased. The Government needs to address this issue as a matter of urgency and the drinks industry stands ready to work with it when it does so. It should be noted that the State actually subsidises this below-cost sale of alcohol through the VAT system.
Footfall is often driven through supermarkets by large expenditure in the media, particularly the print media. Not only is this contributing to the problem I have just outlined, it is also creating an environment wherein the sale of cheap alcohol is normalised. One need only look at a Sunday newspaper in the days before a bank holiday weekend - or any weekend - to see the scale of price-based advertising on the part of the multiple retail chains. Before 2006, multiple retailers used promotions on consumer electronics and other products to drive footfall but the removal of the groceries order has allowed them to use alcohol instead. If the Government were to act to ban this practice, these retailers would simply find a new product to entice consumers into their stores. The mechanism for the Government to address this issue already exists. Section 16 (2) of the Intoxicating Liquor Act 2008 allows that where the Minister is satisfied that the medium used for the advertising, or the nature of the advertising, or both, is intended or likely to encourage the consumption of intoxicating liquor to an excessive extent, the need to prohibit or restrict such advertising will come into play. There can be no doubt that price-based advertising in the print media, whereby consumers are often encouraged to purchase more and more to maximise the so called value of a promotion, falls under this category.
The final point that needs to be considered by the committee relates to placing codes to regulate alcohol on a statutory footing. There is one particular code which I wish to highlight and to which Ms Jones has already referred. The 2008 Act contains provisions in respect of separating alcohol from other products in mixed-trading outlets. Essentially, those who drafted the Act wanted to put a stop to the practice of placing white wine beside nappies in supermarkets. However, following an extensive lobby from the multiple retail chains section 9 of the Act, which contains these provisions, was not commenced. Instead the voluntary responsible retailing of alcohol in Ireland code was introduced. In substance, this code differs from what was proposed in the Act in a single - but central - way, namely, it is voluntary rather than statutory in nature. The code states that certain things should be put in place but, as Ms Jones pointed out, the inclusion of the phrase "as far as possible" renders it meaningless and useless. Naturally, this phrase made the entire code redundant and to this day it has been honoured more in the breach than in the observance. The Government must commence this section of the 2008 Act in order to force large multiple retailers to level the playing field. We simply want to operate in a fair trading environment where the substantial advantages that the large multiple retailers enjoy are not copper-fastened in legislation.
Current licensing laws date back to 1833 and have been updated regularly since then. The result is a very intricate and complicated set of laws. These laws need to be simplified and their consolidation has been promised for almost ten years. Unfortunately, this matter has actually slipped down the list of priorities. The consolidating legislation is now promised for mid-2015. However, a promise in this regard has been made on an annual basis for almost a decade. Part of the regime to which I refer involves licensing hours and days. At present, Good Friday is a prohibited day. The Easter weekend has become a central part of the tourist offering and it is impossible to continue to justifying this position. A Private Members' Bill to rectify the position in this regard was introduced in the Seanad and we would urge members to support it.
I thank members for their attention and we will gladly try to answer any questions they may wish to pose.