Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill. I wish to acknowledge that Deputy Kelly has produced a very good piece of legislation. From my perspective, there are two aspects on which I would like to comment. The first is the issue of tours. I can understand the reservations being expressed about it and they are fair. At the end of the day, if one takes out the tour element, one effectively transfers this from what I understood it to be, which was the development of legislation to enable a tourism promoted sector and the ability of people to access a tour and purchase alcohol to, in effect, a licence for a commercial premises to sell its products to manufacturers and retail stores. They are two different things. I can understand why any small microbrewery or manufacturer would want to have a retail operation for the reasons mentioned by Deputy Wallace, such as margin and everything else. It is something which is inherently different from the notion of facilitating a process like a tour which is designed to have a very different element.

In respect of the 6 p.m. cut-off, an extra hour would be very beneficial because if tours are being conducted and there is an access point, the cut-off will be 4 p.m., 4.30 p.m. or 5 p.m. depending on the length of the tour. The proposal for an extra hour has some validity. I would be cautious about moving to remove the tour element completely because it would turn this into a licence for a manufacturer's retail store. We need to examine that carefully in terms of the other aspects of what we are trying to do around alcohol in the country.