Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for coming into the House today and I am glad we can urgently deal with this Bill. The Bill closes a loophole which I did not believe existed but one never knows the way people's opinions vary. The Bill was deemed to be necessary. Everybody approves of the No Name Clubs and discos for young people which allow enjoyment without intoxicating liquor. The Minister and his Department deemed the Bill to be necessary, although I read during the summer that he said it was not but other persons and agencies disagreed and it had to be introduced. We welcome that aspect of the Bill.

The Minister accepted the amendment to allow for a change in the time when children may be on the premises, from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., having previously accepted one in this House for a change from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. I have not moved from my position, which some Members shared, that I never agreed with young children being in pubs. When I go out for a drink I do not want very young children dancing around my feet and knocking over bottles and shrieking. I love children and am a most adoring parent and grandparent but I know their limitations in hot, crowded circumstances. We are portrayed as if we want to embrace our families and bring them with us as appendages wherever we go. That was thought to be our lovely trait, hence we wanted to bring children to the pubs. There is a great difference between bringing babies and very young children into pubs and those of more adult years who can contain themselves and behave appropriately.

Many pub owners said that this provision was a difficulty for them. They might, however, think of their customers who do not share that point of view. I was of the view contained in the earlier Bill and have not changed simply because the Minister has agreed to change the time. If it eases a burden on pub owners, that is a good thing. It is for the summer months only because the main tenor of the argument appeared to be based on tourists who wanted to embrace their families for 24 hours of the day — they will get sense. The idea is presumably motivated by many representations made to the office of the Minister and the Department and through the political parties.

We welcome the Bill. I particularly welcome the codification Bill the Minister is bringing to Cabinet soon. It would be a very good idea to bring it to this House first where we will give it a thorough airing; I say this so that the Minister will know what colour paper to print it on. We will be very glad to deal with it.

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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In response to the Leader's last point I intend to introduce the codification Bill in Seanad Éireann as soon as it is drafted, which is important. There were and are different views about the 9 o'clock threshold. In case people get carried away with how right they were in the past, which we all have a tendency to do, when I moved the time from 8 o'clock to 9 o'clock, some Senators, including Senator Bohan, welcomed it and said it was not far enough but Senator Terry on behalf of the Fine Gael group said:

This is proof that one cannot please everybody. I would have preferred the time to be left at 8 p.m. However, perhaps this is a difference between Dublin and the country. When one goes into a pub on a Sunday evening, one will regularly see children running around. They should not be there after 8 p.m. However, I do not have a difficulty with the provision because the single hour does not make a great deal of difference. Pubs that serve food could install a separate dining area which would only be used for dining and by families with young children.

All of this was true. The threshold was not motivated by a desire on my part to prevent children being in, for example, a local pub such as The Dropping Well in my constituency, after any particular hour of the night. It was designed to make some starting point after which a member of the Garda Síochána could go into The Dropping Well and identify 16 or 17 year olds drinking and say the publican was committing an offence. It is not intended to stop toddlers annoying people and knocking down their drinks while chasing one another around. It also marks an hour when somebody between the ages of 18 and 21 would be obliged to produce evidence of their age. I am not attempting to create a nanny state to control toddlers who are annoying their elders but to establish some point in the day when the gardaí can tell a publican he or she has 16 or 17 year olds on the premises and is breaching the law.

It is easier to talk about the need to control the so-called alarming development of distance sales than actually to control them. If, for example, Senator Quinn's supermarket has a delivery service and I order a case of Beaujolais, that is a distance sale. Will it be illegal if the case of Beaujolais arrives at the house and there is a child there? We must be very careful about where we go with these concepts. It is easier to talk about them than to legislate for them.

I agree with Senator Quinn that we cannot deal with all issues by legislation. There are very strict limits on what legislation can achieve. I was very conscious in the 2003 Act that I was going as far as I could at the time to address what was then regarded as a very serious problem. It is amazing how people's attitudes change. There were "Prime Time" programmes showing young children having their stomachs pumped in hospital. People asked me what I was going to do and I could have archly said: "It is a matter for people to control their own behaviour, do not ask me." I could also have said that street violence is a matter of personal choice and people should not ask me what I am going to do about it. I could have said drunkenness in the streets is a matter of personal choice.

Brendan Ryan (Labour)
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That is what Donald Rumsfeld said.

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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I am a liberal by disposition and people should control their behaviour better. Had I said that I would have been screamed out of public existence for taking a blasé attitude to serious situations. There is a balance to be achieved in this. In saying that evidence of age was required for young drinkers we went as far as we could down the road to control under-age drinking. In the Dáil, for instance, the then Fine Gael spokesman on justice said he would not support my Bill at all unless I outlawed all 21 year olds from all drinking establishments everywhere in Ireland. It is very simple for people to erase from their memories——

Brendan Ryan (Labour)
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Look what happened to him since. The Minister is still here.

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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Well I know he had a problem with the ban on smoking in public places. People have a great capacity to claim they were right all along but what they were saying all along was quite different.

I welcome the general support for the Bill. The question of whether the 10 p.m. rule should apply for all or part of the year can be considered again in the context of the overall consolidating legislation. The points made to me were that families were out together in the summer and wanted to go in and have something to eat afterwards and bring the kids in with them. If one is now saying that Ranelagh, Finglas or Temple Bar are tourist locations where 16 and 17 year olds should be allowed into pubs unaccompanied by adults up to 10 p.m., I have a problem with that. That explains why we have gone as far as we have on the summer months rule.

Mary Henry (Independent)
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Can I ask the Minister about tap water?

Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)
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The Senator can ask about that on Committee Stage.

When is it proposed to take Committee Stage?

Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)
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Now.