Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Senator Burke, may I correct what I said earlier? There are penalties in the Intoxicating Liquor Act; however, there are no enforcement powers. There is nobody who can enforce it, so we could commence it but it could not be enforced, which seems pretty pointless. What would happen is that all the retailers would say they would wait until the new legislation comes through to see what they will have to do. The timeline will be around 12 months. One has to give reasonable notice to people to comply with the legislation. If we can enact the legislation by the end of the year, giving people about one year's notice to comply with it, that would bring us up to the end of 2016, which is not all that far away.