Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

I not convinced the motion or the amendment goes to the heart of the action required to address the use of alcohol in Ireland. I am the first to admit the issue is difficult and requires the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to square the circle between health and competition concerns and to unravel the historic mesh of licensing laws which control the sale of alcohol. The emergence of the superpub has been the most significant change over the past 15 years in terms of where we consume alcohol. Planning authorities, county managers and politicians did not see this one coming. I was fortunate enough to be at the heart of the change when I lived close to Temple Bar and saw what was happening. I saw beautiful, small, intimate pubs, which epitomised the product we offer tourists, demolished, ransacked and cleared out of the way to be replaced with drinking dens with all the atmosphere of an airport departure lounge.

It was a crime against the people of Ireland and everything I hold dear about the country to give the cartel which controls the licensing industry free rein to expand licensed premises to double or treble their original sizes. It was not good enough to stand idly by, but I watched my colleagues on Dublin City Council, Bord Fáilte, Dublin Tourism and Temple Bar Properties lay themselves down and give publicans whatever they wanted.

It is correct to have restrictions on alcohol, a drug that must be considered carefully. The continuation of the status quo, however, will not suffice. Licences are in the hands of a small and incredibly wealthy group of publicans who live in a country in which a licence to pull pints amounts to a licence to print money. I applaud the Minister's determination to modernise our licensing laws because the law is an ass in its regulations on the sale of alcohol, which have existed for two centuries. It is crazy that a city the size of Tallaght has a mere handful of pubs when one cannot walk across the street in Temple Bar without passing one. We must tackle this state of affairs head on. I would love to see the number of superpubs reduced while the emergence of café bars is facilitated. The Minister must reduce the number of drinking halls if café bars are to thrive.

People say time and again that we are not like the French, Italians or Spanish, but at the heart of the average Irish person is significant envy for the Mediterranean lifestyle. Irish people greatly admire the Mediterranean ability to sit down after work and have a glass of beer outside a small local pub where one knows the person behind the counter and he or she knows the people. In Italy, where I lived for a year, one is certainly not served a further drink if one has had one too many. There is a role for the publican in existing legislation in controlling drinking, which clearly provides that a publican may not serve someone who is intoxicated. Publicans and off-licences are turning a blind eye, which is why the law must be adequately enforced.

We must modernise our licensing laws. I made a detailed submission to the Commission on Liquor Licensing five years ago in which I expressed the opinion, perhaps because of my background as a town planner, that planning laws were adequate to deal with licensing arrangements, especially if permits to trade were granted for limited periods. While I am still not convinced we need a great deal of control over the sector, we must enforce the legislation we have enacted. I plead with the Minister to adequately enforce existing legislation. The Irish people are ready for café bars provided sufficient controls are implemented.

See this speech in context