I intend to vote against the Second Reading of this measure. I am also in the position of desiring a change in the present licensing laws. The Taoiseach intervened in such a way as to strengthen my intention of voting against the Second Reading. The main purpose of his intervention was to show that the Fianna Fáil Party will be tied to this particular legislation. There will be no free vote for the members of that Party; and the only amendment the Taoiseach suggested was with regard to the two-thirty opening time on Sunday instead of what is in the Bill.
The Taoiseach, in his usual effort to oversimplify, said he cannot understand anybody who decides to vote against this measure because it is accepted that a change is required; and then, he says quite simply, a change means a Bill. Therefore, one must vote for this Bill. That, of course, is completely illogical. I do not intend to vote for this Bill for the reason that, while I regard the present law as being weak, especially since it is not enforceable, I do not think we ought to go the whole way proposed in this legislation. The Taoiseach says that after the passing of this legislation there will be continuous and rigorous enforcement of the law. That may be his intention but I imagine that in another five years we will be faced with further liquor legislation and we will find then that there was no public opinion behind the legislation now being put through. The Taoiseach hopes there will be public opinion to support it.
I want to test the Taoiseach. Does he think that the people in the rural areas who have been drinking illegally over a great number of hours on Sundays will be satisfied in future and give him their support because he will make it legal for them to drink part of the hours on which they have been accustomed to drinking on Sundays? I do not think that will be the case. Neither do I think that the position adumbrated in the Garda Síochána memorandum quoted by the Minister for Justice on the Second Reading will be changed. The memorandum stated that it is well known that it is almost impossible to secure observance of the law unless the majority of the citizens are anxious to see it enforced. Will anybody tell me that because we are going to extend the hours there will be any greater effort on the part of the people in the rural areas to accept the new provisions when the police try to enforce them? The memorandum said it is very doubtful if this can be said of the present licensing laws. People from all walks of life break them regularly. No social obloquy appears to attach to offences against the licensing laws.
Again, does anybody assert that, if this Bill becomes law, a person who is found on licensed premises after hours will feel any sensation of social obloquy which, the Guards think, is absent at the present time? I personally do not believe they will. The memorandum goes on to say that the penalties imposed by the Courts are often quite inadequate as a deterrent. The Courts over the years have definitely failed to impose proper penalties for breaches of the licensing laws, and it is quite true nobody thought it any shame to be found in a licensed premises after hours. Will there be any change in the attitude of the people towards drinking during unlicensed hours or who are found on licensed premises trying to get drink in hours that are not permitted? I personally do not think there will be any great change. Neither do I think any great change likely to occur in the attitude of the Garda. Nobody regards being found in publichouses at the wrong hours as anything really wrong. If the police try to enforce the law under the proposed new hours I believe the Garda will find the same attitude in the future as has obtained in the past and the Courts will take the same attitude in the future with regard to the imposition of penalties.
The Taoiseach also told us that he understood one of the great evils at the moment was that, with the approach of the closing hour, there is a sort of feeling of apprehension— Deputy Faulkner referred to this matter also—that the Guards will be around any minute and people therefore order a few drinks and swallow them quickly because they are afraid the publican may insist on closing at the proper time or the Garda may be in to prosecute the publican for nonenforcement of the law.
Let us think of the hour as being 10 o'clock or 10.30 or 11 o'clock. Will there not be people who, instead of going into the public house at 9 o'clock, will go in at 10 o'clock or 10.30? The same situation will arise. Those people, realising that time is nearly up, will order a couple of extra rounds and will drink them quickly with the same evil result. I do not think that the changing of the hours will make any difference to that section of people and you will have the same people getting drunk every bit as quickly by drinking the few last drinks as fast as they can.
The Minister told us that the Church's attitude was that they were afraid of drunkenness and he gave us a sermon on drunkenness. In doing so he introduced the question of the drunken driver. I do not think that it is proper to equate those two things so that one will come to the conclusion that every person found guilty of driving a car while drunk is guilty of being sinfully drunk. Drunken driving depends on whether a person is able to exercise effective control over a vehicle. Some people might be able to do that and still be definitely drunk but to say that it applies to everyone who is found guilty of drunken driving is putting the matter too far.
I understand the attitude of the Church to be, not that there will be more drinking, but that the longer hours will allow more people to get into the habit of drinking even though they are not drinking to excess. You are going to extend the number of people who will get into the habit of taking drink. I can see a considerable change coming over the rural areas where, up to the present, after Mass, you have certain people scrambling to get into a public house because they know that the Guards will not bother them but, under the new dispensation, it will be possible for everyone to go in during certain hours. In those circumstances you are bound to have an increase in the number of people who will be accustomed to taking drink.
I am against this proposed legislation. I agree that the legislation that exists at present has been ineffective and I agree that the legislation has not been enforced properly and that lack of enforcement depended to a great extent on public opinion. That state of opinion showed itself with the public that counted. That is not the general public but the public that wanted to drink during the illegal hours. Both the Courts and the Guards decided, and it was not through indolence or inefficiency but they agreed with the people, that there was no stigma attached to drinking in an illegal period. I personally believe that the Court and the Guards have helped to weaken public opinion in regard to this matter. If there had been some better effort to enforce the law and if the Guards had been serious in their effort they might have helped to create a better public opinion and they might have got District Justices to impose penalties that were adequate.
Public opinion has weakened and wilted on this matter. If public opinion has to be educated, we cannot do it by giving in to people who want to drink at times when they should not drink and that is just what we are doing. We should also say that we hope the Courts will help to enforce the law by inflicting heavy penalties and that we will see that the Guards will take more vigorous steps to enforce the law in future.
At present there is great contempt for the law with regard to drinking as it stands and the proposals now before the House do not make any effective changes that I can see. Many of the clauses in this legislation are interlocked but, on balance, I can see only two changes. The area exemption orders are to be abolished and the bona fide traffic is also to be abolished.
The area exemption order is a very small matter. It allowed four hours, at the most, in certain areas. That is to be taken away and, as I have already said, the bona fide traffic is going to be abolished. In return for that, there is quite a considerable extension of the hours allowed and as far as I can see the result will be a considerable extension of the number of people who will get encouragement to drink. As far as the ordinary licensed house is concerned, the time is to be extended by an hour. I do not see any reason for that. I have noticed no pressure for it and there have been many representations made against it. Those people who write to the newspapers are definitely against it.
In addition to that there is a change being made in regard to the hours during which drink may be served with meals. An additional period is being allowed. It used to be from 11 o'clock or 11.30 and there is an alteration of an hour or an hour and a half with regard to the time in which drink can be served with meals.
Personally, I think that this matter of drinking must be looked at in a different light when it is a question of drink being served with a meal and when it is a question of a person getting a drink without any food. Is any effort to be made to define what a meal is?
Is there to be any question of relating the price of the meal to the liquor served with the meal and the price charged for the meal itself or are we going to reach the situation— I do not think that we reached the point in this country that they reached in England—where in railway refreshment rooms and such there was the well-known business of a sandwich chained to the counter and served to all sorts of customers with the liquor they ordered? That was at one time regarded as sufficient at least to pass for a meal with which a drink could be served. When a person is supposed to be taking a drink with a meal—and not having a fake meal so as to get a drink—that would be all right, but I see no way of enforcing this matter of a meal and insistence on a real meal when drink is being served, unless some regulation is laid down in law, and it would be difficult to enforce, in relation to the price or value of the meal and the amount of liquor a customer will be allowed to have.
With this extension, first of all of the hours when drink is to be served with the meal, there can be an extension of a full hour on the ordinary closing times in hotels and restaurants for weekdays. We have then to consider all three types of special orders that may be obtained from time to time, the general exemption order, the special exemption order and the occasional licence which, of course, allow for a considerable extension of the old hour and will still be something additional to the new laws imposed in this legislation.
It is when one comes to the rural opening hours on Sundays that one finds the biggest change has been made. At the moment there is permission to have drink from 1 to 3 p.m. or in Dublin from 1.30 to 3 and from 5 to 7 p.m. In the county boroughs that prevails. There was no permission to have drink outside the county boroughs on a Sunday. I am leaving out the bona fide trade for the moment. It is now proposed to allow drinking in all areas from 1 to 3 p.m. and from 5 to 9 p.m. during what is described as summer time and from 5 to 8 p.m. during the other months. I understand that this is no extension, so far as practice is concerned in the rural areas, and yet we are told by the Taoiseach that we have to depend on this, making legal something that was previously illegal, to gain us the whole weight of public opinion in rural Ireland.
These hours are a great extension of drinking facilities in rural areas on Sunday. In addition, the periods during which drink may be served with meals are also enlarged so far as Sunday is concerned. It is in regard to the Sunday that the two big changes are being made. The Area Exemption Order is scheduled for repeal and that will mean the deprivation of possibly four hours at a maximum on certain special occasions. In addition, the bona fide trade has been abolished. The bona fide trading must, of course, be related to Sunday drinking and no doubt most people are against bona fide trading and would like to see it go. But a balance has to be kept and I fear the balance is very much weighted in favour of better facilities for drinking and therefore for having a change and a change for the worse in the habits of the people without necessarily leading towards drunkenness. It is for those reasons that I take the Tables that are put as a Schedule to this memorandum and in regard to Tables 1 and 2, I confine my entire objection to this legislation in regard to the extension of hours as set out in those two Tables.
There is also the matter of the six-day licence. The Taoiseach, intervening again, said that a tendency has been always observable in the licensing legislation passed through Dáil Éireann, a tendency towards the diminution of the number of public houses in the country and that was a good tendency. The Taoiseach makes a case against any good treatment of six-day licences as running against that tendency, that at any time that we did have any legislation that approved of that tendency, we always provided for compensation. A particular line that has been very successfully explored was that the number of public houses could be reduced by certain machinery and compensation paid to those who went out. A way in which that could be more effectively done in the country was by, not so much reducing them but securing better placing of licences as the population swung to and fro. In other words, it has been possible to buy a licence—I am speaking of a full licence—extinguish an old licence, and then get a new full licence in certain areas in Dublin where the population was showing an increase and where there were not too many licences in the neighbourhood.
We are departing entirely from the other guarantee that was given and observed in regard to licence holders that in the future, where anything was done by the State to destroy a legitimate trade—a trade regularly and legally carried on up to a certain point —the case should be met by compensation. We are now faced with this: the six-day licence holders and seven-day licence holders in the countryside up to date were very much in the same position. The six-day holder did not open on Sunday and the seven-day holder although licensed for the seventh day found in fact that it was not of very great value except only in respect of bona fide traffic. Now, the seven-day licence holder is given a tremendous advantage over a licensee who has only a six-day licence. I believe that once the State interferes in a way that puts some group at a serious disadvantage, or gives a very considerable advantage, the State should do something to see that the old-time equality is better preserved.
It has been said here and said quite clearly that the number of six-day licence holders is a very small fraction of the number of licence holders in the country. The Minister, or some Deputy, said they were about 1/8th and that is so. The difficulty about the six-day holders is that there are pockets in the country where the number of six-day holders is a much bigger proportion of all the licence holders in the area than it would be of the whole countryside and no doubt difficulties will arise in trying to treat these people in any sort of fair way. I can see an injustice either way, but I think the lesser injustice is done by giving the six-day holders a full licence and not insisting on their buying out. The Taoiseach appears to think that the provision with regard to buying out a licence will meet the situation and that no injustice will be done and that we shall also secure the aim of the Dáil over many years of licensing legislation of reducing the number of licences in the country. It may reduce the number of licences but it will certainly work unjustly so far as the six-day holder is concerned.
The Taoiseach has said that he understood, or that it had been represented to him, that there was any number of licences to be had, so to speak, for the asking. That might be the case up to date but when this legislation is passed and the full effects of it are realised, there will be no cheap licences for sale. People will know that there is a considerable advantage to be got by those who may buy or succeed in getting a full licence. That, of course, will have a reaction and immediately the price of what might have been a decaying licence will become the price of a really valuable property.
There are a certain number of matters in this legislation on the minor side which, of course, are of importance also. Some rather leave me a little bit confused. The Minister, at column 953, spoke of the minor matters and said there were three of some consequence. One is that a new publichouse licence can be granted for premises in a rural area on the extinguishing of two existing licences of the same character. That is, they were cutting out the old time requirement that they must be in the same or adjoining district court area. There may be some advantage in this but certainly whatever advantage there is is overweighted by the fact that two licences will have to be bought instead of one, as previously.
The Minister made as an important point a second matter, that there are provisions in the legislation whereby a person who intends to construct a new premises or to make substantial alterations in an existing licensed premises, can get a declaration from the courts that if he completes his premises according to plans and fulfils other statutory requirements, he can get a promise, so to speak, of a licence in due course. If that is any change, it is certainly not a change in Dublin where for quite a while the practice has grown up of people going in with plans, and showing that part of the premises have been brought to some point of reconstruction and securing from the court a statement that if the premises were constructed according to the plans, the licence would be granted. It is recognised, I have heard justices say that this was something of an extension of the licensing laws or the provisions with regard to the granting of new licences but nevertheless, it is a practice which has prevailed in Dublin for many years. It may be that it will ease the situation in the countryside.
Part IV of the Bill was referred to by the Minister at column 954 and he brings it forward as something of an advantage that the health authority would be allowed to object to the grant or renewal of a licence on the ground of unfitness of a premises. It may strengthen the hands of those who do not want licences to be granted or to be renewed but, again, I am not sure that this will be of any special advantage.
One of the objections that may be taken to the grant or renewal of a licence is with regard to the unfitness of a particular premises and those objections have been made from time to time in the courts and many a premises has been ruled out on the ground of faulty toilet room accommodation, and things like that. I do not know that leaving the health authorities the right to intervene will make very much difference. I wonder is it right to allow health authorities to intervene? When a licence or a renewal is sought there are any number to object. The Licensed Vintners' Association generally are represented at any of these applications and they themselves raise the question of fitness or unfitness of the premises and often have got licences or renewals refused.
That brings me to another consideration. The police are entitled to object. For many years there was confusion as to what were the proper grounds upon which the police might make objections to premises. Various views have been expressed on that from time to time. Personally, I have taken the view and have heard that my colleagues in the district court take the same view, that the police were entitled only to object on police grounds, on such things, say, as supervision of particular premises or that because of an addition or extension to a licensed premises supervision was rendered more difficult or almost impossible but the police did get into the habit of entering objections on the grounds that there were too many licensed premises in the neighbourhood. That, I suggest, is none of their business. That should be left to those who are in the neighbourhood and who can be very vocal on such an occasion when they think that the trade they have under certain conditions will be broken into by some new trader being allowed to establish himself in the area. I do suggest to the Minister that, whether by order or regulation or possibly by some legislation or addition to legislation, the Garda should be confined to making objections, say, for renewals or the grant of new licences to what are police matters and should be confined or should confine themselves to that.
The Minister, towards the end, spoke of a provision whereby licences which were dormant for five years cannot be revived. This definitely confuses me. I had always thought that the law was that if there was a licence dormant, which did not trade during 12 months, that licence was lost. It is true, it could be revived on an application to the court but the courts were very slow to grant such applications. I know that it was possible to evade that requirement by opening for a certain day or a weekend or two or three days towards the end of a week and making it possible to say that the premises had not been closed to trading for a full period of 12 months. But, if the Minister's purpose is to say that, even although there might be an odd bit of trading done year by year, if a licence does lie dormant for five years then there is no possibility of its being revived even on an application to the court, that may make some improvement. Personally, I do not think it will matter much.
At the end of his speech the Minister returned again to this matter to which the Taoiseach referred to-day, that when this Bill becomes law it will be strictly enforced and there will be no periods of grace allowed. There again the Minister is going to find himself up against public opinion. The public opinion is not really in favour of licensing regulations at all and the Minister will find that the Guards will not get support from the public and I doubt if they will get support from the courts, even after this legislation is passed. There will still be that remnant of that old time idea in the public mind that they should be allowed to drink any time their appetites drive them to it as long as they have the money to spend. I would emphasise again that the public in this connection means really the drinking public, the public who resort to these places. I doubt very much if the passing of a piece of legislation will change the old time attitude which has been built up over many years in regard to drinking in the city and the country and that there will be any great change made in it simply because we yielded to public opinion and have failed to enforce the law for many years and now feel that we will restore public confidence by some extension of drinking hours.