The purpose of this Bill is to provide for a period each year during which the time for general purposes will be Greenwich Mean Time. During the rest of the year, standard time, one hour in advance of Greenwich Mean Time, will operate. The period of Greenwich Mean Time proposed in the Bill is the period from the Sunday following the fourth Saturday in October to the Sunday following the third Saturday in March, but if that is Easter Sunday the period will end on the Sunday following the second Saturday in March. In the present year, however, it is proposed to change to Greenwich Mean Time on the 31st October, which is the Sunday following the fifth Saturday in that month. Provision is made to allow the Minister for Justice by order, requiring a resolution of approval by both Houses of the Oireachtas, to vary the period either generally or for a specified year or specified years or, save in relation to the coming winter, to prescribe that there shall be no period of winter time either generally or in a specified year or specified years.
Until the enactment of the Standard Time Act, 1968, Greenwich Mean Time was standard time but there was a period each year during which, in accordance with the Summer Time Act 1925, the clock was advanced. The Standard Time Act, 1968, provided, in effect, summer time all the year round. What this Bill proposes is that we should revert to the position that obtained up to the enactment of the 1968 Act.
The Bill, if enacted, will enable us to keep our time in line with that in Britain and the Six Counties, where there will be a reversion to Greenwich Mean Time on 31st October, with provision for a period of summer time, during which time will be one hour in advance of Greenwich Mean Time. When the British decision to revert was taken, my Department asked public bodies and organisations for their views as to whether our law should be changed to permit of this country synchronising with Britain and the general public were invited by advertisements in the newspapers to give their opinions also. The weight of representative opinion is in favour of our keeping in line with Britain and the Six Counties.
The Summer Time Committee who examined our time system and reported in 1941 were in favour of having the clock advanced during the period from the first Sunday in April to the first Sunday in November on purely domestic considerations. They also thought that the preservation of time parity with Great Britain and Northern Ireland— in the interests of communications and inter-State business—was highly desirable.
In the Dáil some Deputies referred to the report published by An Foras Forbartha in October, 1969, on the subject of the effect on traffic accidents of the change to standard time. While it is true that the report's findings tend to show that the change to standard time all the year round may have had a beneficial effect on accident occurrence, I think it only fair to point out that the road safety campaign conducted in connection with the change undoubtedly played a large part in the matter.
The Bill provides in effect for synchronisation with British time but the approach is different, in that the Bill does not propose to change the position whereby Greenwich mean time plus one hour is standard time ; instead it proposes that the period during which Greenwich Mean Time is proposed to operate be called the period of winter time. That period, as proposed in the Bill, is substantially shorter than the period during which Greenwich Mean Time plus one hour will obtain and it is logical to maintain Greenwich Mean Time plus one hour as standard time: it is, incidentally, the standard time in Western Europe generally. The Bill does not affect the position whereby premises licensed for the sale of intoxicating liquor are permitted to remain open during the period from mid April to early October. Subsection (2) of section 1 of the Standard Time Act, 1968, provides that an enactment expressed to operate during a period of summer time is to be construed as operating during the period I have mentioned.
The Intoxicating Liquor Act, 1962, provides for later opening of licensed premises on week nights during a period of summer time and the intention in 1968, when the concept of summer time for general purposes was being abolished, was to preserve the status quo in the case of the provisions in the Intoxicating Liquor Acts, on the very good ground that any change of substance in those Acts should be effected in an Intoxicating Liquor Act and not in a Time Act. At the conclusion of the debate on the Bill in the Dáil I was asked by Deputies to consider the desirability of amending the provision so as to synchronise the period during which later opening is permitted with the period of standard time that will obtain if the proposals in the Bill are enacted. I have done so, but I adhere to the view that any change of substance in the Intoxicating Liquor Acts is proper to an Intoxicating Liquor Bill. I am, in any case, not aware of any demand from the trade or the public for an extention of the period by a month in the Spring and by three weeks in the Autumn, which is what synchronisation would involve.
In conclusion, I should like to express the hope that the Seanad will view this as a non-contentious Bill, which is being introduced because it reflects the wishes of the people as a whole.