SEANAD REPORT:MINISTER FOR Justice Alan Shatter said he regarded as a backward step the decision by the vintners' organisation to cease supporting the voluntary Meas code, which requires drinks producers, distributors and licencees to ensure alcohol is sold and promoted in a socially responsible manner.

He urged them, in the public interest, to reconsider their decision. Speaking in the debate on the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2011, Mr Shatter said provision was being made for the preparation and publication of codes of practice for the purpose of setting standards for the display, sale, supply, advertising, promotion and marketing of alcohol.

While breaching the code would not be an offence, it would constitute a ground on which an objection could be lodged by the Garda to renewal of a licence.

Reacting to suggestions that the period for discharge from bankruptcy be lowered to three years, he said a balance had to be struck between allowing people who, through no fault of their own, had got into difficulties, to start anew, and preventing those who had deliberately run their businesses badly from getting off the hook on debts.

The five-year period stipulated in the Bill was intended as an interim measure to see how it worked in practice.

Mr Shatter disclosed in his first three months in office he had dealt with more than 6,000 citizenship applications compared with the 5,000 dealt with in the whole of last year. On becoming Minister he discovered 22,000 applications were outstanding, “far too many of them for more than two years”.