Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is unfair to say we would be opening up a new regime of off-licences. The breweries would only be allowed to sell their own beer. The Minister seems to have no problem with thousands of supermarkets all over Ireland being able to sell hundreds of beers and spirits, but he has a problem with 62 microbreweries having the potential to sell their own product. How would that make them off-licences, if they could only sell the product they make themselves? There is no comparison. The Minister is being a little unfair. I ask him to reconsider and look at the matter again. He should have a couple of good craft beers over the weekend and reconsider his position.

On the tourism element, if the Minister checks the record of proceedings at the committee, he will find that we were not confining our argument to breweries selling to tourists. Of course, it could boost the tourism industry, but it could also give the small microbreweries an opportunity to survive. It is not easy to survive against the big boys. They are indigenous. None of the big boys is Irish. Their profits do not stay in Ireland but go elsewhere. We want to help small, indigenous Irish industries in the microbrewery game to give them a chance to survive.

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