Seanad debates
Thursday, 19 June 2003
Intoxicating Liquor Bill 2003: Committee Stage.
At present people under 18 can sit there all night drinking Club Orange in the company of a person over 18 who is drinking an alcopop that is visibly indistinguishable from the Club Orange. Nobody can supervise this is in a large premises and work out who is drinking what. The law is effectively unenforceable in that respect. We moved from that to say that there must be a time at which 15, 16 and 17 year olds are out of a premises so that a publican knows that everybody in his premises is over the age of 18. We have said that younger people, who would, in the ordinary course of events want to have soup, coffee and all the rest with their parents while out for an afternoon, would not be able to avail of that loophole to loiter around a pub and to drink in circumstances where they were not obliged to have any evidence of age or whatever.
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