Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this proposal. I too have a concern that we are pushing the can down the road for another six months. That is of very little use to people who have invested in outdoor facilities and amenities. The hospitality sector and publicans who have made that investment are going from six-month to six-month periods, wondering whether they will have to take things down again or what is going to happen. It is important that we protect business by putting something more permanent in place in terms of outdoor dining and drinking.

It is important to refer to people with disabilities. As a member of the disability matters committee, I would like to draw the attention of the Minister of State to the fact that some of the outdoor facilities that have been put in place have not taken cognisance of the discommode they have done to people with a disability, especially on footpaths. It is important that that is examined. While we are helping the hospitality sector, pub trade and all of that, which is great and a legacy of Covid, it is important that we make sure people with disabilities are taken into account when we make these decisions.

I hear from people in Galway East that the pub trade is changing and it is harder to make money at it. Any opportunity to try to change how they do business is a welcome proposition. The fact that people can have a seat outside to have a drink on a nice evening or whatever is great, looks good and creates an atmosphere in a local town or village. That is to be commended. However, we need to make that a permanent part of the trade in order that publicans or people serving food know this is the way they can do things going forward. At the moment it is not like that.

We extend this every six months. If we extend it for six months now, we might have an election before or after the six months are up. Where does all this legislation go in the meantime? It is important that we have this on a permanent footing in our legislation. When the legislation is introduced, we do not need to add more costs to publicans by requiring them to do a lot of paperwork and all of that kind of thing. The ways things were done during Covid were simple and quick and allowed people to provide protected socialisation. We have to bear in mind that this is the basis for this legislation. We need to make it permanent because it was a good thing to do and we demonstrated that we can do it without choking the system with paperwork. That is important.

Where is the legislation to make this permanent? When will it come before the Dáil? How will we deal with that in the very short timeframe we have? It is important that we get that right. It is important that we extend this, but the Government has added a number of iterations of this particular legislation on a six-month basis, which is not acceptable. I agree with what we are doing, but let us get it permanently right.

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