8 July 1999 Edition

Resize: A A A Print

O Caoláin backs longer opening hours

The government's Intoxicating Liquor Bill came to grief in Leinster House last week as it failed to win enough support to push it through before the summer recess. The widely criticised bill would have abolished the Sunday `Holy Hour' in pubs and allowed a one-off 24-hour opening on New Year's Eve 1999.

The plan to push through the bill had to be withdrawn after it became apparent that the government-supporting `Independent' TD would not support it. Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín O Caoláin put down an amendment calling for opening hours to be extended to 12.30am every night, summer and winter. The government opposed this and other Opposition amendments. Caoimhghín O Caoláin said in the Dáil:

``The general reaction to this bill has been disbelief. People are aghast that such a minimalist approach should have been taken by the government. The only people who will rejoice at this bill are journalists for local newspapers who specialise in covering `found on' cases in the District Courts, as publicans, their patrons and the gardai carry on the farcical after-hours ritual which has become a permanent feature of life, particularly in rural Ireland. It has gone beyond a joke.

``This bill is the flimsiest of efforts, containing minor provisions which should form part of a much wider bill addressing comprehensively the whole area of the sale and consumption of intoxicating liquor. The abolition of the holy hour on Sundays is long overdue. The only other purpose of the Bill is to grant a once-off, 24-hour exemption over New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. It is hard to see this as anything other than a gimmick, a gimmick I do not support.''

An Phoblacht
44 Parnell Sq.
Dublin 1
Ireland