Mr. Donall O'Keeffe:

It is the nature of these debates that we focus on the issues we are concerned about or oppose. The bulk of the Bill makes a lot of sense to us. We welcome the proposed trading hours. We welcome the late bar and nightclub permits and the conditions attached to them. We welcome the abolition of exemption orders and those costs because they were absolutely ridiculous. We also welcome the levelling up of the licence grant and licence renewal criteria. We think those are positive steps in tandem with modernising the Bill into one 21st-century single point of legislation around the licensed trade. We think that is all very welcome.

We have one principal area of opposition and it has been well ventilated today. I refer to our opposition to the changes to the extinguishment requirement for the on-trade. We think this will prove to be a failed policy initiative and we will continue to engage on that over the course of next few months as the Bill moves through the Oireachtas.