Kevin O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses. On the comment earlier, while we do not want to do so, we have to take the emotive issue out of this discussion. I commend the witnesses on coming before us today. I am a rural Deputy. The media try to portray it as if it is Dublin against rural Ireland but it is an issue that affects the whole country. We talk about dairy farmers who live a few miles out from villages but there are big towns and even Dublin where one could be living inside an urban sprawl with the pub still two miles away. I see lately, driving through the streets of Mallow at midnight, that no taxis are available and the area with the speed limit through the town could be over three quarters of a mile long.

I am not condoning drink-driving. As indicated in one of the reports, we have to be fair. As Mr. Cribben said in respect of those reports, we have to be objective and the penalty must fit the crime. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, in his letter to us in February, made the point that the reason he was trying to change the penalty for a person with blood alcohol content of between 50 mg and 80 mg per 100 ml to three months off the road as opposed to a fixed penalty of three penalty points and a €200 fine was that people were abusing it, as if to say that there were repeat offenders. I am going to go on the record now. I asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, because it is a matter for her Department, if she could give me figures to show that people who were caught with blood alcohol content between 50 mg and 80 mg per 100 ml became repeat offenders. In other words, did they show disregard for this legislation? She said she was not in a position to provide that information. It harks back to the issue that the Minister, Deputy Ross, had a knee-jerk reaction at Christmas and went gung ho on the issue without considering figures. We see the witnesses have taken consideration already. The vintners have provided figures that completely contradict what some of the other organisations have given us. A real rush-job is going on here and I ask that more consideration be given to the matter.

It is hard to defend the issue, I know, but, as stated, there must be balance. In my area, some places depend on the State. In some villages, post offices that are dependent on State subsidies are being closed. The local creamery branch was dependent on them to keep up with technologies. The shopkeeper is under pressure from the multiples. Pubs, which have no subsidies whatsoever, pay the highest tax contribution to the Exchequer and are trying to survive. I think there should be fair deliberation on this legislation.

Have the witnesses seen business pick up in recent years? In the context of the pub trade - this is directed at our guests from the VFI in particular - I came across the term "staycation" during the week. Recent CSO household figures show that there has been an upturn in the domestic market. Do vintners feel that there has been such an upturn? What we are trying to do is keep pubs open. I know they can turn to alternatives such as providing food, coffee, etc., but has there been an upturn in the drinks industry with regard to pubs?