Gabrielle McFadden (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My good friend and former Senator, Imelda Henry, who is here today recently said that closing pubs on Good Friday belongs to another era. While I do not wish to disrespect anybody's religious beliefs, as a person who grew up in a pub I am inclined to agree with her. She has said that it was a legacy of the past which does not recognise the massive changes in Ireland and the manner in which pubs have changed in recent times. Almost 60% of our pubs now serve food. It is no longer realistic to expect one sector of our hospitality industry to remain closed while shops and restaurants remain open for business.

We have spent a lot of time and money as a country advertising Ireland as a tourism destination and as a Government we have grown the tourism figures hugely with the 9% VAT rate, the Wild Atlantic Way, Ireland’s Ancient East and of course the beautiful lake counties. Why then would we not allow publicans to open their pubs which are an intrinsic part of our Irish tourism experience? This has been reported by research which states that the Irish pub is a top selling point for Irish tourism, or at least one of them.

I respect those who do not agree with this proposal but there is no obligation on any publican to open if he or she does not wish to. I did a straw poll of friends who are publicans and I phoned ten people this morning. Of the ten, eight are in favour of opening on Good Friday and two were not but both of those two who said they were not in favour said that they believed it should be left up to publicans.

Apart from preventing tourists from experiencing a good old Irish pub and what it has to offer, do not forget that people who want to drink on Good Friday can do so by stocking up in advance with below-cost price slabs from the supermarket, as Senator Lawless mentioned. At least in a pub there is some regulation on the quantity of alcohol that can be consumed.

I commend the work done by former Senators Imelda Henry and Maurice Cummins and all those including Senator Lawless who have brought this Bill here today and opened a debate which I think is really important. I support the Bill in principle and the very great need to reform the Good Friday rules but this needs to be done in a manner that does not create further anomalies and unfair trading conditions for categories of licence holders. It is really important and we are pushing our country as a tourism destination and it is part of what we have to offer to tourists.