Kevin O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Kelly for pursuing this issue from day one. It is a welcome initiative. There are many positive things relating to rural Ireland in particular, including job creation, encouraging more tourism in rural Ireland and, it is hoped, securing grain production in many parts of this country, which is at an all-time low, especially in the area of prices. I see that one distillery in Donegal was offering premium prices for grain to get farmers back into the grain-growing business.

It is a known fact that the majority of the micro-breweries and distilleries have come from County Cork. My own backyard has the success story of the Eight Degrees Brewing Company. We should be positive in this legislation. I ask the Minister to accept it in its wholeness. I agree that opening hours should be restricted because otherwise we will have house parties moving into breweries as opposed to supporting local pubs. It is very important to keep the latter business going as well. One will have competition as well. It is a well-thought-out initiative that should be supported wholeheartedly.

I have mentioned the Eight Degrees Brewing Company. I am on the border of the River Blackwater in the constituency of Waterford. Ballyduff is a very isolated rural village near the Blackwater in west Waterford whose boundary is almost in my constituency. Blackwater Distillery has purchased an old premises in the middle of that village, is moving its business there and hopes to go into production soon. In fairness to the Government, various agencies have given great support in the form of funding, which must be welcome. Places like this need this kind of industry to survive. We talk about town and village centres losing their identity but here is an initiative by individuals who have the heart of rural Ireland in mind and are prepared to keep their business in rural Ireland, and we need to help them. One way of helping them is allowing them to have a facility where tourists and other interested people can go on site, view and see how the product is produced, as people can do in the Jameson Distillery, in Midleton or the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, but on a smaller scale.

One of the only reasons I ever came home from abroad with more than half a dozen bottles of wine was after visiting the vineyards there. Of course, I would not own one, like Deputy Mick Wallace does. I am sure he will invite me to his vineyard one day.

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