SEANAD:SHARP DIFFERENCES of opinion were expressed on whether pubs in Limerick should be allowed to open for the Munster-Leinster rugby match on Good Friday, April 2nd.

Joe O’Toole (Ind) urged that the law be changed, saying the net effect of this would be that church-goers and believers could abstain from alcohol on Good Friday on the direction of their church while atheists, agnostics, sceptics, heretics and others could imbibe should they wish to do.

“Everyone’s a winner. Free will prevails, the Church-State separation is maintained. We render to Munster the things that are Munster’s and to God the things that are God’s. We save jobs. The economy gains.”

Ivana Bacik (Lab) said it was no longer acceptable to hold to some sort of quaint notion of Good Friday as being a day on which alcohol could not be consumed. “Let those of us who don’t believe that Good Friday is a particularly special day choose to do what we want to do in pubs and clubs.”

Ann Ormonde (FF) said it should be possible to amend the law governing the sale of alcohol to enable pubs to open on Good Friday for special events while maintaining the values of that day.

David Norris (Ind) said it was outrageous to schedule a rugby match on Good Friday. Sunday had once been reverenced here and was now the biggest commercial day because we had become the lackeys of the British multinationals. He was not going to join the populist rush to seek the desecration of Good Friday by the opening of pubs.

Eoghan Harris (Ind) said there was something odd and wrong about having a rugby match on Good Friday in a country where every corner, churchyard, village and town was impregnated with Christian symbolism.

Seanad leader Donie Cassidy said he did not think anything, whether it be the television rights of a foreign TV station, or whatever, should interfere with the way we commemorated “the crucifixion of the Good Lord.”