I do not know if that was the purpose of the Deputy's argument. It seems to me that the purpose was in the opposite direction. He seemed to argue in favour of giving the licence to someone other than Bord na Móna. Deputy Moran was quite frank in regard to that. The Bill does not prevent the possibility of Bord na Móna having the canteens run under contract. I would not regard it as a desirable method, nor do I think the board contemplates it. They have stated to me that they intend to run these canteens themselves, that is to say, that the camp manager will be an official of their own and hold the licence and, if he loses that position, he will lose the licence.
So long as it is the camp manager who holds the licence, ex officio, there is no property in the licence, as he holds it as an official of the board. If he loses his employment because he does not do the job properly, he loses the licence and his successor takes it on. If the camp is wound up, as all these camps will be wound up, when the bogs adjacent to them have been exhausted, the licence will be extinguished and there will be no problem in that regard.
I think it is far more desirable that the board should run these canteens themselves and manage their own staff. I am certain there will be no difficulty whatever in getting suitable people to manage the canteens and there should be no question of any private interest in the licence. The objection I see to the board operating these canteens on contract, or to the alternative suggestion of giving the licence to a private trader, is that the interest of the private trader will conflict inevitably with the interests of the board. The board is concerned merely to see that the camps are properly managed, while the private trader is mainly concerned with getting a profit out of the licence. It is inevitable that the profit motive of the trader would come into conflict with the board's management. I think the board should be in charge of the canteens and have full power of supervision over them, including the power to dismiss the manager of the canteen, who would be the holder of the licence, if it thinks such a course would be proper.
I said that the Bill has not been framed so as to exclude absolutely the possibility of the board having its catering arrangements carried out for it under contract, just as the catering arrangements at the airports are done under contract. Similar legislation to this was passed to enable restaurants, in which liquor could be sold, to be established at the airports and again I think the necessity for the departure from the principle of the Intoxicating Liquor Acts was quite sound. This is not a case in which it is necessary to go to the courts and give other trading interests, or the police or the temperance societies, an opportunity to object. It is agreed here in the Dáil that it is desirable that in these isolated camps there should be facilities for the recreation hours of the men employed in them and the necessity for having them there can be appreciated by everybody here. We do not have to go through the procedure of making a case before a district justice in order to get that necessity recognised. Everybody here recognises it.
On the Second Reading of the Bill, I said I would not be prepared to grant a licence to an official of the board for the sale of liquor at the board's canteen where the camp operated by the board was within a reasonable distance of suitable licensed premises operated by private traders. Deputy Coogan has quoted me as objecting to workmen travelling a couple of miles for a drink after their day's work. What I said was that I would regard it as undesirable if they had to travel more than a couple of miles for a drink after their day's work. Certainly, in my view, if there were suitable licensed premises within a radius of two miles from the camp, there would be no necessity to grant them a licence under this Bill and no licence would be granted; but where, as will be the case in the majority of instances, the camp is in an isolated area where there is no licensed premises within a reasonable radius from the camp, then it would be unfair to the workers employed there if they could not get a drink at the end of the day without travelling many miles for it.
If it is agreed that in these isolated camps there should be some canteen facilities, it seems to me to follow automatically that there should be agreement that those facilities should be provided by the camp managers and supervised by them, that there should be no private property in the licence to sell drink, that the licence may be withdrawn at any time from the person to whom it was given, if he ceases to be an official of the organisation and also can be withdrawn if and when the camp is closed up, so that there would be no continuing ownership interest concerned. That is the sole purpose of the Bill and the sole purpose of this section. There is nothing in the Bill which is in conflict with the principles contained in the Intoxicating Liquor Acts, and nothing for which there is not a precedent. I mentioned the precedent of the legislation which empowered the granting of licences in connection with airports. The exemption in the Intoxicating Liquor Act for canteens run in connection with Army barracks is also a precedent. I would not at all agree—in fact, I would strongly disagree—that it is preferable that these canteens in turf camps should be run by private traders for their own profit. I think it is infinitely preferable that they should be run by the board.