Billy Lawless (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I am grateful for the opportunity to debate the Bill, which has been co-sponsored by Senators McDowell, Boyhan and Craughwell and for which I hope to obtain the support of the majority of the House. The Bill has one very simple and straightforward objective, which is to remove the prohibition on licensed premises, including restaurants, off-licences and supermarkets, from trading on Good Friday. I acknowledge former Senators Imelda Henry and Maurice Cummins who, along with a current Member of the House, Senator Colm Burke, sponsored the same Bill which, unfortunately, never got past First Stage in the previous Seanad and was not debated.

It is very welcome, as reported in The Irish Timesyesterday, that the Minister, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, sought Cabinet approval to ensure the support of all of the Fine Gael Senators, and that all parties have indicated their support for the Bill. I equally respect those opposed to the Bill, including my colleague, Senator Mullen, with whom I recently enjoyed a lengthy and respectful debate. I am of a generation which fully appreciates the importance of what religious observation means to many in this country and I appreciate how they feel the country in which they grew up has dramatically changed over the past 50 years. Unlike what we have seen in my adopted country of the United States, however, Ireland's modernisation has been intergenerational and has cut across class divides. The so-called "left behinds" in the United States, who do not recognise the modern United States advocated by former President Obama and yearn for a country which reflects the old ways of their past, is a constituency in large that is absent in Ireland. Nowhere was this more self-evident than in the same-sex marriage referendum, when an overwhelming 61% of the population, across all ages, genders and traditions, voted to support a change to the fabric of our nation, which would have been unconscionable when the Irish Free State was established in 1922.

That Free State, in an understandable desire to distinguish itself, in almost one of its first legislative actions enacted the Intoxicating Liquor Act 1924. Until that point, as the then Minister for Justice, Kevin O'Higgins, outlined to Dáil Éireann when he introduced the Bill, pubs were open on Good Friday from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. in cities and towns where the population was more than 5,000 and from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. elsewhere. In an expression of support for the Bill, it was observed by a Labour Party Deputy, Thomas Johnson, that Good Friday is a Christian memorial day. He supposed one might say that in Ireland, more particularly in the Twenty-Six counties, that it is recognised and taken notice of to an extent more than in any other country, perhaps in Europe or the world. This is how the debate was framed then. Prohibition of opening pubs on Good Friday was intertwined with the image which our new independent State was seeking to portray.While the prohibition on pubs opening was lifted for St. Patrick's Day some 60 years ago, for the best part of 90 years, the prohibition on pubs opening on Good Friday has stayed the law of the land, with only two attempts to seek legislative change in the area. One was made in a Private Member's Bill in 1998 by the Labour Party, and I note from the record of debates that it had the support of then Deputy Michael McDowell, now Senator and co-sponsor of this Bill. It was defeated on Second Stage. The second was in 2014, by Fine Gael Senators, in a Bill that never got past First Stage. It was former Senator Joe O’Toole, however, in seeking to amend a Government Bill in 2000 to allow pubs open on Good Friday, who perhaps framed the debate in the most straightforward manner to date. He stated:

Ireland is a grown up country. We appear able to deal with bribery, corruption and other nasty aspects of life.