Mr. Adrian Cummins:

We welcome the reform of licensing laws. From our perspective, the association was established to get a special restaurant licence established in the State. We need to modernise where we are. We need to look at where we lie from European perspective. If we want to attract tourists into the country they need to be able to access venues late into the night. This is what the requirement is. We need to make sure we are fit for purpose.

We also need to see what is being proposed. We represent pubs that sell food, restaurants, cafés and hotel restaurants so we have a broad family to keep happy. Importantly, we want to make sure that we see what is coming down the tracks. We are up for a reform of the night-time economy and making sure that businesses are able to trade profitably in those areas.