Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)

I see a lot of merit in this particular amendment. The concept of sequential closing is a good one. A point was made to me from someone in the industry that there could be merit in looking at having a closing time for serving alcohol, with a longer period for drinking up. That period would not be used by people stocking up on drink to drag things out. Non-alcoholic beverages, such as tea and coffee, and food could be served and would help people to sober up. It would slow their exit from night clubs and take the strain off the public transport services such as taxis and so on.

There is a real need to make sure that everybody is not coming onto the streets at the same time. There should be some more thinking outside the box, like the idea where people could have a single drink just before the sale of alcohol was to cease, without being rushed out of the premises. They could usefully be encouraged to stay there for non-alcoholic beverages and food.

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