Damien English (Meath, Fine Gael)

We are talking about abuse of alcohol, not having a few pints and a bit of fun. We must tackle the trouble on the streets but before we do so we must have an honest debate. First we must establish what we are talking about. My concerns mainly relate to the abuse of alcohol by young people or those drinking to excess at home, those who cannot handle drink, the people who cannot stop at six or seven pints but have to get into such a state that they cause trouble for themselves or others. I worked in a bar for ten years and the most trouble I encountered was from people aged over 30. I rarely had trouble with people under 20.

People are very concerned about trouble on the streets. It is obvious that we need more gardaí to tackle this problem. Many towns are waiting for decisions on funding for CCTV. We must consider staggering pub closing hours. I am not sure that the way forward is to tell everyone to leave pubs at 12.30 a.m. or 1 a.m. I would welcome a debate on this. I do not say I am right or wrong but we should discuss the matter. The other countries to which the Minister refers on the Continent which do not have a drink problem have staggered closing hours. Bars in those countries are open longer hours than here. People do not leave bars at the same time and end up meeting and beating each other on the streets, which happens here. Let us discuss this matter and examine if it would be worth changing closing time here.

A change to pub closing times might also have the benefit of doing away with the rush at closing time to drink twice as much alcohol as was consumed in the previous four hours. In the last hour people buy four or five pints and a couple of shots which they drink in half an hour to beat closing time. We must get away from that culture. If we took the pressure off and allowed people more time to drink they might drink more slowly.

I urge the Minister to facilitate a debate. We seek a national strategy to tackle alcohol. Let us have a proper discussion on this matter. Those who are interested can contribute and those who are not interested can stay out of the debate. Let us debate the issue and come up with solutions. I have a page of other ideas which I would like to go through. We should give it a shot and examine what we can do.

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