Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations and submissions. I will make some general comments and anybody who wants to react to what I have to say can do so.

Last week, industry representatives came before us. In terms of the Bill, we were very taken by what the Give Us the Night campaign had to say about Dublin city centre being under great pressure and cultural spaces being under assault by degrees. Many members are minded to be sympathetic to that view. Extended licensing hours in that cultural environment is something that should be welcomed.

However, having listened to the industry representatives I must point out that it is an industry which, in general, has been typified by lower paid and insecure work. It has never really been welcoming to any strengthening of workers' rights in that regard. I made that point to the industry representatives last week.

Some spoke about a pub as being the centre of a community and that they wanted to seek UNESCO status for the Irish pub. One begins to wonder how on earth we have reached a situation where the centre of the community is a pub and that UNESCO status is what we should be seeking for the Irish pub. Is that an absolute and utter failure of Irish society in general?

I am aware of the 100 people who die of fatal overdoses of alcohol every year. We are all aware of the €3 billion plus it costs every year and the influence that alcohol has on violence against women and in general. Any witness can answer my question which relates to the Bill and also wider society. I was a teacher in a primary school for 11 years and became very aware of how bombarded people are by messaging all of the time. People can come from families that are very restrictive in terms of access to alcohol, says all the right things and brings up their children all the right ways, but children are not just influenced by their families but also wider society, their peers and what is expected of them. For whatever reason, our public health messaging, be it in schools or elsewhere, is not strong enough or is not getting through.

Young people ask me how they can believe messaging when the generation before them drinks all of the time, drinks a lot, celebrates drinking a lot or finds it very funny when people drink too much. The generation before them drank too much, and celebrated it and thought it was funny. Are we losing the cultural war when we have come to a scenario whereby somebody, can, in all honesty, come to a committee like this and say with a straight face that we need UNESCO status for the Irish pub? Are we completely failing, given all that we know about the damage alcohol does to Irish society? That is a wider educational piece and societal message around alcohol and its availability.

I would like Mr. Light to expand on the workers' rights piece.

If this legislation is enacted, it will lead to people working in an environment that is potentially less safe because people will have consumed more alcohol at a later time of the night. Those workers have to access a way home safely and they have to be around people who will be more emboldened and violent - and the other risks that are attached to that.

My contribution is the wider education piece, the wider societal messaging and how we can balance that with a need for us to treat people like adults and be responsible. However, it feels like a war that we are losing. My direct question to Mandate is about how we can strengthen the workers’ rights within the Bill to ensure that anybody who takes on these licences for later opening hours has curtailments within that as to how their workers can be treated and protected.