Mr. Robbie Kitt:

To elaborate on what Senator Warfield is referring to, in the general scheme the cultural amenities licence which is being proposed to replace the national cultural institutions licence would require our national cultural institutions, of which there are seven in the country, to apply for temporary late-hour orders to open late. Within the current framework of the licensing regime, our national cultural institutions can open at any time. If they are providing a cultural event, as they are de facto the most culturally recognised institutions we have within the State, they are allowed and afforded the possibility to open at those hours. Typically, our national cultural institutions do not find much reason to open into the late-night market. However, the Senator referenced the Haunted Dancehall, which is a good example of that. Last October, as a pilot event, a sold-out, two-night electronic art and music festival ran in the National Concert Hall. It went on until 3 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. That is not afforded to any other licensed premises in the country.

It was able to utilise the licence in that instance. With this new amendment, the only way a national cultural institution could go until 6 a.m., let us say, is if it were to get a publican's licence and apply for a nightclub permit. That is the only path by means of which it can access that market.

Responding to some of the things that have been said, such as the idea of deregulation being a disaster, I totally understand that from the point of view of pubs. However, it needs to be noted that the only entities that can access the permit system are publicans. We called for the establishment of a stand-alone licence type for nightclubs, late night entertainment and cultural venues. Instead, we got this permit system. It ould work, but, for some reason, cultural amenity licence holders are excluded from the late-night market in its entirety. They cannot access those permits. They have to go through an effective system, which means that they have to apply every single night that they open late, which will completely disincentivise any growth in that industry.

We need to be explicit with regard to the numbers. We outlined the significant decline within the provision of these dance spaces, from more than 500 20 years ago to 85 today. If we are talking about the number of theatre licence holders, who will be grandfathered into this cultural amenity licence holder system, that is 87 licences.

On the idea of the possibility of a backdoor, this whole reform means that the entire system is moving through the courts. Previously, theatre licence holders got their licences from Revenue. It could be argued that there were different standards for different processes. In respect of this reform, I do not understand how it can be a backdoor if it is the same door. Everybody is going through the same door; everybody is going through the courts. As I said, there are 87 theatre licences. Even if we were to see a 100% increase in the number of cultural amenities licences, we would be talking about 170 licences. That is not going to happen. What if we saw a 10% to 20% growth in this? There are not people queuing up around the corner to open up cultural venues in Ireland. We need to create incentives and ways in which these people can access the market. We are talking about tiny numbers, so I do not think there is any fair reason to exclude these business types from the same process. Cultural amenity licence holders would have to go through the same court process, meet the same criteria that, as Mr. O’Keeffe said, is significant. We welcome those types of criteria being established as well. They would be subject to the same methods of appeal from the Garda, residents and the fire safety authority. Why are these types of businesses excluded from the permit system?

It has been outlined even by previous contributors that we are "over-pubbed". However, we are talking about a different type of business. We are talking about cultural providers and their access to the late-night market. There has not been any suggestion that we can understand that is a reason to exclude these types of businesses from that entire market. We think that is something that needs to be address within the general scheme.