Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am a little confused. Issues arise with regard to the licensee and the licensed premises because there are situations where the licensee is not the person who runs the bar. The bar may be leased by the licensee to someone else. The licensee applies for the licence each year but is seldom, if ever, on the premises and so it is outside of his or her control. The other issue is that often the outdoor seating areas are in a public place, on a street or a square, for example and are shared. People could order from the bar on the left hand side or the right hand side of the square and the order is brought to them. To be able to say which bar they are patronising depends on knowing from which premises they ordered and that might depend on which bar tender happened to be walking past at the time they sat down. It is difficult to get clarity as to whether a premises has patrons outside equal to the number that could be accommodated inside. That is something that needs to be sorted out.

There are also situations, including in my own county, where the outdoor seating area is at the back of the bar and the only way a customer can get to it is to walk through the premises. When they want to leave, they have to walk back through the premises again. There are all kinds of different situations and we are trying to accommodate them all in legislation which, for some reason or another, is written a little tight. It does not allow for the different situations that apply everywhere in the country.

There are situations where multiple premises are sharing the outdoor space in which people congregate and the seating thereon. People can order food from one premises and at the same time, order alcohol from another. Some effort must be made to clarify these issues as we move through this process. I absolutely appreciate that this has been rushed, as others have said. We need to stand back a little, while recognising that it will all fall, hopefully, on 30 November and is not here forever. The maximum amount of space needs to be given to ensure that we have a regulated situation that will work for people. We do not want to introduce legislation that will not work or that is impractical.

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