Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. More comprehensive legislation on the sale of alcohol is promised for the autumn but this Bill represents some important policy principles. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons that I will go through, it is a missed opportunity in terms of tackling problems associated with alcohol abuse. This point was made on earlier occasions but it is a pity that the Bill is to be rushed through during the last week of this session. There is no case for urgency on the Bill, particularly as more comprehensive legislation is due in the autumn. It is a shame that we are to rush it like this.

Others have gone into the harm caused by the abuse of alcohol through public order issues and private heartache in relationships. The question is how best to tackle this from a legislative perspective and this Bill, unfortunately, represents no more than a knee-jerk, tokenistic attempt to tackle the problem. I do not believe that restricting pub and nightclub opening hours and creating more criminal justice public order offences will tackle problems associated with the abuse of alcohol. Nor will they tackle the culture of drinking in Ireland, which has tended to be a culture of binge drinking and which has been compounded by restrictive opening hours in the past. Laws relating to holy hour and so on are, thankfully, no longer part of the system. It would be far better to address the problems associated with alcohol abuse through preventative and educational means, rather than through criminal offences and the restriction of opening times.

If one looks at the history of licensing laws in Ireland one will see that from the 17th century the motivation behind them was to control excessive drinking by controlling what was described in an old statute as "the needless multitudes of ale houses". It was felt that these should be reduced "to fewer number, to more fit persons and to more convenient places". We can see that this rather paternalistic approach to controlling alcohol consumption is still borne out in our current system of licensing laws. While any person may open a sweet shop or, indeed, a massage parlour, a licence is still required for any person who wishes to sell alcohol. The granting of new publican licences was prohibited in 1902 in an attempt to reduce the number of pubs in the country.

The result of this original motivation has developed into the complex system of licensing laws we operate with today whereby nightclubs operate under a sort of theatre licence that is not really suited to the modern establishments they constitute. Changes routinely take place nowadays to the opening hours of pubs and nightclubs and exemptions are granted to provide for longer opening hours. This is a rather unsatisfactory approach to regulating alcohol consumption and it has resulted in the unfortunate presence of a very small number of large, so-called super pubs, particularly in the centre of Dublin. They tend to close at the same time, due to the current laws, and this involves large numbers of people spilling onto the street simultaneously. This causes many public order issues, public transport difficulties and so on. As others said, it would be far better to introduce a system of sequential closing times, enabling some venues to stay open later than others. This would ensure people do not come onto the street at the same time. Members have referred to "staggered closing times" but this is a somewhat unfortunate phrase in the context of alcohol consumption. "Sequential closing times" might be a more tactful way of putting it.

We must be careful not to fall into the trap of youth bashing.