The pressure for some radical reform of our archaic licensing laws continues to build. Faced with opposition from the Government parties, the Labour Party Bill proposed by Dr Pat Upton last week failed to muster sufficient Dail support - it was voted down by 66 votes to 56 last week - but it has certainly acted as a catalyst for change. Last week, the Vintners' Federation of Ireland added its voice to the clamour for change which, suddenly, appears inevitable. Meanwhile, the report of the Joint Oireachtas Committee, which has been reviewing the licensing laws for more than two years, is eagerly awaited.
For his part, the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, has signalled that he is not opposed to substantial change in the law. His open-minded approach is to be welcomed. The existing laws, which involve 40 different statutes from the Victorian period, tend to reflect the paternalistic British approach towards alcohol. They are now out of kilter with the nature and the needs of modern Irish society - and with the more relaxed European approach towards drinking hours.
The operation of our licensing laws is also haphazard and uneven. The average drinker may be required to vacate an `ordinary' public house by 11.30pm but other pubs are free to continue serving until at least 1.30 am provided the premises in question has some kind of food available and a so-called `special exemption' has been secured. The fact that there are some 65,000 applications for such exemptions every year underlines how the existing law is now in disrepute.
The furore about the so-called "zero tolerance" approach of the Garda in the West towards closing time also speaks volumes; the gardai are no more than enforcing the law as it is. The problem is that the law only appears to be tolerable to the general public when it is not enforced.
Any move to review the licensing laws is fraught with danger. As if to underline the point, the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, estimated that alcohol-related illness, accidents and absenteeism cost the Exchequer £325 million annually, when he launched the new national alcohol awareness campaign last week. The anti-alcohol campaigner, Dr Mick Loftus, the Mayo county coroner, has also spoken in moving terms about the death of many young people as a result of drink-driving.
But support for more realistic and more modern licensing laws does not imply support for greater consumption of alcohol. More liberal drinking laws would give the citizen greater responsibility for his/her own actions. And it would allow people to drink at a more leisurely pace. Dr Upton's sensible and very practical Bill would represent a good starting point. It proposes year-round closing at 12.30 am and the abolition of the two-hour Sunday closing. Most significantly, the Bill provides a flexible approach in which the courts could vary opening times in accordance with local needs and with the needs of the tourist industry.
It may be that any reform will have, as Dr Loftus suggests, to be accompanied by a reduction in the drink driving limit, more random breath testing and strictly enforced closing times. One thing is certain; the present chaotic state of affairs with regard to our licensing laws cannot be allowed to continue.