Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

What I see as important regarding having venues open later from a health perspective is that pubs and nightclubs are regulated environments. In my experience, people are not going home at 12.30 a.m. or 2.30 a.m. They are going to illegal, unregulated parties all across the city and to house parties as well. It is anecdotal, in fairness, but I feel that people are drinking more in house parties and it might be said that people have better opportunities to take drugs in private parties as well. We have lost 85% of nightclubs in the past 20 years. We have an opportunity to have harm reduction teams in these environments. The HSE is working at festivals around drug campaigns, and around Europe one will see harm reduction teams at indoor and outdoor festivals as well. The first point I will make is that it is not the case that people are going home to bed just because we have early closing times on licensed premises.

I mentioned that 85% of nightclubs have closed in the past 20 years. Without extended hours, we will lose those spaces for good. Professor Murray talked about industry versus public health. There is another stakeholder. Five years ago I attended a Give Us The Night event in the Sugar Club in Dublin that hundreds of young people attended.

The representatives from the event were here last week. Hundreds of people are calling for change on this issue. They are not part of the industry. They are artists and cultural practitioners. We will lose these spaces for good if we do not fix the problem of losing nightclubs. There are positives regarding public health in the Bill. Not making any changes to the off-licences is positive. I wonder what other positives the witnesses see in the Bill. I think there will be fewer wine retailers' licences. Is that a positive? Will the HSE have an increased role after this Bill is passed? I have heard that it will. I would welcome any comments on that.