Mr. Donall O'Keeffe:

I will comment on long-term drink consumption trends and what we have experienced. I will try to answer in two ways. The Deputy is right. Alcohol consumption has declined steadily each year over 20 years, from a peak of about 14 l of pure alcohol per person to 10 l per person today, which is in line with the EU average. In Ireland, there has been a substantial shift from the on-trade to the off-trade. Between 15 and 17 years ago, 80% of alcohol was consumed in pubs and 20% was from off-licences. That has flipped on its head and today 65% is probably in off-trade and 35% to 40% is in on-trade. There has been a huge shift over two generations.

Ms Kealy would be better able to explain this from an operator's perspective. Since we reopened, we have seen people come back to the pubs in droves. We are really encouraged by the number of young people who are coming back. Our sales are running between 90% and 110% of 2019 levels if we compare each week. The city centre is slightly weaker than suburbia because offices are not fully repopulated and tourism is only getting going. Recovery is positive. We can see it strengthening and getting going. We are pleased with the demand levels we have experienced since we reopened. One silver lining of the pandemic is that people realised that ordinary, normal social interaction and social occasions is something we missed when we were forced to stay at home. People are socialising a little better or a little more. Pubs in suburbia are busier in the middle of the week than they were before the pandemic. Food is a huge driver of our business and is more significant than drink in the early part of the week. We are optimistic in the medium term that Dublin will trade strongly. The economic clouds are on the horizon for everyone but the near-term outlook is positive.

We are equally concerned by the sale of alcohol Bill. The licensing regime does not exist to protect publicans from competition. It exists for regulatory control reasons, to allow the Garda, public health authorities and Revenue to manage the sale of alcohol. We believe we have a world-class pub culture in Ireland. The regulatory regime is a big part of that because it puts a huge onus on licensees to run their pubs in a responsible manner. The fact that licensees have to go to court every September to renew their licence is integral to having a solid licensing regime. We note the long-term trends, with pub numbers having declined 21% since 2005. We believe there are more than enough pubs in the country. There are twice as many pubs per capita in the Republic of Ireland as there are in the UK, even though the UK is fully deregulated. We have a substantial number of pubs, at 6,800. We have 14,500 alcohol businesses in total, including pubs, restaurants, hotels, off-licences and on the supply side.

We are densely served in terms of outlets that sell alcohol. We think that it is critical that the extinguishing requirement is maintained because it provides regulatory control. We live in a world, both in Dublin and nationally, where there is huge competition between pubs, and between pubs, restaurants and hotels, which is in the interest of consumers. Given that we have, in our opinion, a strong pub culture, we believe the Government needs to be extraordinarily careful about licensing reform in terms of the number of licences.