Mr. Donall O'Keeffe:

Just to be clear on the LVA position, we welcome diversity in the night-time economy. People coming to cultural events like museums, theatres, plays or poetry readings is good for our business. It gets people out and about and they will hopefully come to us for a drink before or after the performance. That is not in question. The concern we have is that we saw with the theatre licence that it became very difficult to oppose them on the basis that the definition of a theatre and, more important, the definition of performance, were so loose that anyone could claim anything was a performance. Back in the 2000s, people were claiming to put on a performance that ran to 3 a.m., 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. without the cost we were incurring with special exemption orders, public liability insurance, security and so on. A level playing field is the single most important element of this. We understand the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media is looking at developing guidance around what a cultural premises may be and what a cultural performance will be. We had hoped to have an opportunity to submit our observations on it. We remain concerned that it will be extremely difficult to define that in a way that is not open to abuse. How do you define a cultural event or cultural performance?

As for the trading hours, we understand the regular trading hours of 10.30 a.m. to 12.30 a.m. will be the maximum under the licence. That seems fair enough. To us, the conditions under which premises can go late become really important.

It strikes us that if they want to go into 1 a.m., 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. with a cultural event, they are essentially setting up to sell alcohol.