Sheila Terry (Fine Gael)

Yes. The other night I attended a residents' meeting. One of their main complaints concerned anti-social behaviour in the vicinity of a garage that sold wine. The garage sells three bottles of wine for €20 thereby making it accessible to young people. Anybody can sell wine. Therefore, I wonder whether the Minister should have extended the regulations to cover wine licences. We still have a situation where wine can be sold anywhere. However, I commend and support the requirement on people to seek planning permission for the sale of beer and spirits.

The Minister said that he wanted to give a voice to councillors and local communities and the planning process certainly does that. However, I see from my area that no matter how many objections there are to an off-licence, a chipper or a take-away, more and more of them seem to get planning permission quite easily. I hope this regulation will not lead to more. The main question I would like the Minister to answer is whether we should include wine under the provisions of these regulations.

The only concern I have about peat extraction projects relates to small family operations, which involve the digging of turf on half an acre or an acre of land. I will accept the Minister's statement that these regulations will not affect such activity. It is obvious that many families in this country enjoy going to cut turf on an annual basis. I would not like anything to interfere with that tradition, which has been built up over many years.

While I support the regulations, I agree with the Commission on Liquor Licensing that this country's drinking culture is of serious concern to us all. The problems which exist in this regard need to be addressed. The Government has dropped its proposal to promote café bars. I would not like a plethora of off-licences to mushroom throughout the country. I am concerned by the Government's decision to allow wine to be sold anywhere without any type of permission from any source. I support the regulations before the House, by and large.