I should like to expand on some of the points made by Deputy Lindsay. At the moment it is open to an applicant to try to revive a licence which existed in 1902. The law lays down certain requirements as to character, suitability of premises, etc., all of which the applicant must prove to the satisfaction of the court before his application is granted. It is true, as Deputy Lindsay has pointed out, that in one or two instances applications have been leniently dealt with. It is nonsense, however, to predicate the future on these instances and it is only sensible to assume that the law as it stands will be properly applied if similar applications are made in future. The fact is that there are a number of lapsed licences which would be useful during the two-year period in which this procedure will be followed. Those lapsed licences would be useful if the amendments in the name of the Government, and no better amendments from the point of view of the six-day licensee, are going to become the law. In other words, a useful amendment would be if we were to say that it would be sufficient for the applicant to tell the Court that he was the holder of an existing six-day licence and his application to have another licence revived was merely for the purpose of having that licence transferred to his existing premises in order to create a seven-day licence therein.
I have, in practice, come across a situation where a prospective purchaser has been afraid to go ahead because he did not know whether or not his application would be successful. Indeed, on a strict interpretation of the law, he would have to assume that his application would be unsuccessful. I am talking now of the person who has a six-day licence and who has made a bargain with the owner of a premises in which there used to be, depending on its location, a seven-day licence and who wants to transfer that licence, when revived, to his premises in order to make a seven-day licence for himself. I have not touched upon the position of a person who has a butchery, a bakery or some place in which to make candlesticks and in which there was a licence ten, fifteen, twenty or forty years ago, and who wishes to have that revived so that he can transfer it in the open market to someone who wants it in order to convert.
It would be going too far if we were to alter the existing law in such a way as to re-create a licence merely to make it an asset for a person whose premises have ceased to be a public house and who is, in fact, carrying on business of an entirely different kind. But I do think it would not be too far to go to leave it open to the applicant to prove that he is the holder of an existing 6-day licence and that his application for the renewal or revival of an old licence is being made solely for the purpose of converting his existing 6-day licence into a 7-day licence.
That does not mean that I personally would be satisfied with that alone. I believe that the Government should give very serious consideration to accepting the amendment down in the names of Deputies Dillon and Lindsay. Originally, it was thought, and word was spread about, that the Government would introduce certain less stringent measures so far as the 6-day people were concerned. It was thought that these would be adequate. I regret to have to say that experience has proved otherwise. I do not care who says there are 4,000 redundant 7-day licences in this country. If there are, they are not for sale and they never will be. They are family heirlooms or something of that kind, but they are not for sale. When I say that, I speak, not merely from my own investigations and knowledge, but from conversations with distinguished business men and others who know this trade and the people involved in it inside out.
I was not here when this debate opened last week, but I read through the statements made by Deputy Dillon and Deputy Lindsay. It appeared to me, from an interjection made by the Minister for Justice, that he does not now accept that this Bill, as it stands, is conferring a benefit on the 7-day licence holders and not conferring one on the 6-day licence holders. It absolutely astonishes me to think that the Minister does not yet accept that in the country the bona fide trade, as such, has scarcely any impact whatsoever on the trade of the public houses in the small towns of Ireland. If the Minister for Justice says that, surely the Minister for Lands, who is associated with this Bill, will not say so?
Is it still seriously suggested that people travel from town A to town B to keep within the law and drink in a 7-day house there? Anyone who says that is talking through his hat. The plain fact is that the customers of the public houses are, and always have been, drawn from a radius of three miles of the town. A handful, perhaps, on any given Sunday might be within the law by being in a seven-day public house and living more than three miles away. But I say a handful only and, in fact, in practice all down the years there was no difference whatsoever between the man who was drinking in a six-day public house and a seven-day public house on a Sunday. They were each equally breaking the law. The effect of the provisions of this Bill will be to put an end to that situation as far as the seven-day licences are concerned, but not so far as the six-day licences are concerned.
I know all the arguments that have been advanced (a) about the number of licences, which is purely notional and (b), which is more important, about the cost of these licences to the six-day public houses. I should like to ask a simple question. Is it fair to ask these people to part with a couple of hundred pounds when you are not asking their seven-day neighbours to part with anything, the seven-day neighbour having paid something like one-seventh more by way of duty, one-seventh of £6 or £7? The thing is ludicrous, the more so when, as Deputy Lindsay pointed out— although I think it is not historically true, certainly not as far as my area is concerned—that many of these people, in the first instance, had no choice whatever and were given six-day licences because the Resident Magistrate had an objection in principle to drinking on Sunday.
It does seem rather unusual that the whole of Roscommon has something like 62 or 63 six-day licences whereof 56 are in the town of Ballaghaderreen and Ballaghaderreen was not in Roscommon at that time. Therefore, there were only six six-day licences in the then County of Roscommon. That is the sort of proportion which to me would appear to be reasonable if the applicants were applying from choice, but a proportion such as exists in East Mayo—as it then was, and as some of us would still like it to be—in Charlestown, Ballyhaunis and Ballaghaderreen, a proportion of something like 60 or 70 six-day licences to seven, eight, or ten seven-day licences, is something utterly unreasonable.
Deputy Lindsay pointed out there were certain villages where there were no seven-day licences at all. I am not certain about it but I think that in the parish in which I was born, Aughamore, there are three six-day licences and no seven-day licences. It was formerly part of the parish of Knock. It is six miles or so distant from Knock. Obviously, what will happen if this Bill is passed, if it is passed in its present form or even with the amendments which the Government have suggested, is that the Aughamore people will travel to Knock where they can drink in comfort and within the law. But they will be turned out of their village public house where they and their people before them have been going down the years. I think the prejudice against the six-day licences in high places and low is no credit to those who have had it.
Other arguments have been advanced from time to time. Let me say that I have nothing at all against the holders of seven-day licences. I do not want to do any injustice to them. Most of them with whom I have discussed this matter, apart from some of those who have spent a lot of money over the last few years on purchasing seven-day licences, most of them who are not in that position, readily agree that it would not be fair that they should be given an advantage and that their neighbours should not. I can only say that those who spent a lot of money over the years, particularly in recent years, in buying these licences, were in the same position as the six-day people who did not appear before the Commission.
