Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputies opposite for their comments and for facilitating the speedy passage of the Bill. The legislation is not being rushed, as such. We started the discussions in regard to this in September within my Department and the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism. Under the agreement between the State and the PPP company there is provision which states that intoxicating liquor for the centre was to be obtained, and must be enacted no later than 30 working days prior to the target service commencement date. In effect, this means it should be enacted before 24 June.

As I said earlier, it was intended to include this in the civil law (miscellaneous provisions) Bill, which is a more comprehensive Bill dealing with a number of other issues not connected with this. However, at the instigation of the Opposition, when we produced the Bill, it was suggested that if we were to rush the entire Bill through before 24 June, this would not afford due time for the other issues in the legislation, which needed longer consideration. I agreed to that, and this is why we took it out at as a separate Bill, with a view to passing it.

Equally, it was intended that we would deal with this Bill in Stages in the Dáil and then go to the Seanad with a view to having it passed before 24 June. Again, a timeframe was agreed with the Chief Whip, at least, that the Bill should proceed on that basis. Again, at the suggestion of some of the Opposition Whips that we should take it all today, we obviously agreed, and I thank them for that suggestion. There is no suggestion that we are rushing this legislation. There would have been plenty of time and the suggestion deal with it separately is probably a better modus operandi than what we had originally intended.

Listening to Deputy Carey, I started to believe he was on a retainer for the mid-west tourism organisations. However, that is an issue on which I cannot comment because it is something the new Minister in this area, Deputy Mary Hanafin, will have to deal with. With regard to the points raised by Deputy Charles Flanagan on the myriad items of legislation that date back as far as 1833, we are bringing forward the sale of alcohol Bill, which will be a consolidation Bill. We are in the final throes of dealing with that. It will replace the Licensing Acts of 1833-2008, the Registration of Clubs Acts 1904-2008 and will merge more than 600 statutory provisions spread over 70 statutes into a single Bill. It will have about 300 sections. As such it is in line with the desire by Ms Constance Cassidy, SC and others, as well as myself for reform in this area.

This area has been changed piecemeal over decades, indeed centuries, and it would be better to have a consolidated Bill whereby-----

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