Intoxicating Liquor Bill, 1959—Committee Stage (resumed).
Debate resumed on amendment No. 6:—
In page 4, line 26, to delete "five" and substitute "eight".
(Senator Burke)
As some Senators seem to be under a misapprehension regarding the questions put on these types of amendments, perhaps it would help if I outlined the procedure.
A decision governing amendments Nos. 6 and 7 may be reached on the question:—"That the word proposed to be deleted stand part of the section." If this is agreed to, the word "five" remains in the Bill and the amendments fall. If, however, the question is negatived, the word "five" disappears from the Bill and the resulting gap may be filled by "eight", being the amendment proposed by Senator Burke, or, should this be negatived, Senator O'Quigley may then move his amendment to have "seven" inserted.
The same procedure applies to amendments Nos. 8 to 11, inclusive. If the House affirms the question: "That the words proposed to be deleted stand", it agrees to the hours in the Bill and all these amendments proposing other hours fall.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I do not propose to move amendment No. 7 because we have had very long discussions on this question of hours.
The Senator is dealing with amendment No. 7?
While I am not absolutely satisfied that the hours in the Bill are the wrong hours, I do not think, that at this stage, we shall persuade the Minister to accept our amendments. Therefore, I do not propose to say anything further on amendment No. 7.
Amendment No. 7 not moved.
Amendment No. 8 not moved.
May I take it that we have reached a decision on amendments Nos. 6 to 11? That will simplify the procedure.
No, Sir. I wish to move amendment No. 9, standing in my name.
I move amendment No. 9:—
In page 4, to delete lines 28 to 32, inclusive, and substitute "after the hour of seven o'clock in the evening."
This amendment deals with the hours at which public houses shall close on Sunday evenings. The Bill provides that they shall close at 9 o'clock for four months of the year and at 8 o'clock for the other eight months of the year. My amendment would have the effect of putting back the closing hour on Sundays to 7 o'clock.
In moving this amendment, I should like to direct the attention of the House to the total hours provided for Sunday opening. The argument about Sunday opening is, I understand, that the rural areas felt that up to now they had been discriminated against and that whilst public houses were allowed to open for a limited period on Sundays in the county boroughs, there were no official opening hours, as such, in the rural areas. I quite understand the Minister in the circumstances, providing for Sunday opening in rural areas to remove that grievance and to achieve that lovely objective, "uniformity". What is being provided for here is an increase in the hours for Sunday drinking. At the moment, they are either 3½ or four hours allowed in the county boroughs—a total of 3½ hours in Dublin and a total of four hours in the other county boroughs.
If my amendment, is not accepted, the total drinking hours provided on a Sunday will be 5½, that is, an increase of two hours for four months of the year and of 4½ hours for the remainder of the year. Therefore, we are not simply removing discrimination and mending discrimination which previously applied to the rural areas but increasing the hours of trading on Sundays as the Bill stands.
I shall not attempt to argue that 7 o'clock would be more convenient for the public than 8 or 9 p.m., as provided for in the Bill. A closing hour of 7 o'clock on Sunday would be far less convenient than 8 or 9 o'clock. The argument is that this is Sunday, the one day of the week set aside especially. It is the Sabbath Day. If the public houses are to be open at all, the hours should be confined as much as is practicable.
I do not agree that in providing for opening in the rural areas, at the same time, we should extend the total trading hours in the county boroughs. If it were a question of convenience, I presume the hours would be as provided for, that is, 11.30 p.m. for weekdays in the summer months and 11 p.m. for weekdays in the other months of the year. However, the Bill takes account of the fact that we are dealing with a Sunday.
I am sure it would be more convenient for the general public if grocers, drapers, hardware merchants and other such traders were to open on Sunday, but they do not, because it is Sunday. In dealing with Sunday opening hours for public houses, we should confine them as much as is practicable and not have too much regard to the convenience of the drinking public.
I need hardly mention the convenience of the people who work in public houses, the owners and the employees. We shall now have a situation in which the owners and their employees will be in the public houses at work in the afternoon from 12.30 to 2 p.m. and in the evening from 5 to 9 p.m. Quite obviously, they cannot have lunch before going on duty at that hour of the morning. They will have lunch after the public house closes at 2 o'clock but they have to be back on duty before 5 p.m. to open the public house and if the Bill is left unamended, they will not finish until after 9 p.m. for four months of the year and after 8 p.m. for the other eight months of the year.
In a matter such as this, we should have regard not simply to the convenience of the drinking public but to the fact that we are dealing with trading on a Sunday. If the public houses are to be opened on Sunday, the hours of trading should be confined as much as is practicable. I think 9 p.m. for four months of the year and 8 p.m. for the rest of the year is too late I ask the Seanad to put back the closing hour to the hour prescribed at present in the county boroughs and to make it apply to the rural areas also.
May I suggest that the amendment in the name of Senator O'Quigley might be discussed with this amendment, if Senator O'Quigley is agreeable?
I do not propose to move amendments Nos. 10 and 11, once the hour of 5 p.m. remains in the Bill. I shall not suggest that we should have drinking from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m.
I cannot add anything to what I have already said in respect to the hours in the Bill. They have been examined minutely and passed by the Dáil. I now submit them for the approval of this House. The Senator must surely know that the hours in the Bill are the quid pro quo for the abolition of the bona fide trade and the abolition of the area exemption order. I have flogged that to almost the same extent as Senator Murphy has flogged his own idea.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments Nos. 10 and 11 not moved.
Question proposed: "That Section 4 stand part of the Bill."
The question arose on the amendments and on the Second Stage as to the difficulties attendant on getting people out of public houses before the closing time or at closing time. The Minister indicated the intention to enforce the new closing hours rigorously and rigidly and said that these would be the instructions to the Gardaí. In the case of the 11 p.m. closing hour in winter, if a person is found on the premises at one minute past 11 p.m., will that person technically have committed a breach of the law and will the publican be regarded as committing a breach by having somebody on his premises at one minute past 11 p.m.?
Once the Minister speaks of enforcing the law rigidly and strictly, it is better that people should know what he has in mind and the manner in which the law will be applied all over the State by the Gardaí under the direction of the Minister and the Commissioner of the Garda Síochána. My experience in Dublin is that at this time of the year after 10.30 p.m., or after 10 p.m. in the ordinary public houses or public bars a drink will not be served after the closing hour, but you do get an opportunity amid a din and clatter and shouts of "Time, gentlemen" to finish whatever drink had been ordered up to the closing hour and that generally does not last longer than ten or 15 minutes.
People have always regarded themselves as not being in breach of the law if they have not ordered after, say, 10.30 p.m. in summer and 10 p.m. in winter and get out as soon as the drink they ordered before closing time is consumed. Has the Minister in mind that the law will be applied in such a way that all drinks must be finished and people be marching out through the door at 11.30 p.m. in summer or 11 p.m. in winter? I should like an indication from the Minister as to how this law will be interpreted and applied by the Garda. That would clear the air. I think the Minister ought to let the people know how he intends it should be applied.
To my mind, there is only one way of enforcing a law, that is, by obeying it. I have already mentioned that I met the executive officers of the Garda Síochána and in my address to them, I made it very clear that the Government wanted this law to be strictly enforced. There is not much use in the Senator asking me whether somebody found on premises a minute after 11 o'clock will be prosecuted or not. Circumstances will have to deal with that. Just as we here are sensible people, so, too, will the members of the Garda Síochána be sensible. Neglect of small things allows these small things to grow into big things. What has brought about the situation in which we find ourselves in relation to the present licensing laws is that neglect of the minor matters has been allowed to grow until these matters became much larger. If my instructions to the Garda Síochána are carried out, all I can say is that the laws will be enforced and respected. We shall have to leave it then to the good sense of the people whose duty it will be to enforce the laws.
I understand—I may be quite wrong—that there are decided cases in law that drinks which are ordered and paid for may be completely consumed on a publican's premises. I understand that that does not apply to clubs. This may be all imagination, but, in fact, I was so informed more than a decade ago. If that is the fact, there is no doubt that people will be allowed some leeway, because if the matter comes back to the courts, the decided cases will govern the matter. The court, being composed of sensible people, will say that the hours are changed but that the old rule of law applies—that there are, say, five minutes to complete the consumption of drink. I have no personal interest at all in the matter, but it would be very hard, if, in fact, what I understood was the decided law in the matter were to be altered now in relation to the action of the Gárda Síochána. I am not concerned with the general nature of this clause but with the more severe nature of it.
The Minister made two main cases. He wanted uniformity and in that he was guided by the majority of the Commission. He made great play about the majority being on his side When I impugned the majority in quite a reasonable way. I have reread what I said on that occasion. The Minister said that I appeared to impute some improper motive to the two representatives of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association.
I did not impute dishonest motives to them. I said that their signatures and arguments were worthless, that they had created a majority when, in fact, they had previously created a majority the other way. That is all I said and that is in the Official Report. I cannot see what value it is to the Minister. Indeed, he made great play about following the Majority Report. I think the Minister had probably made up his mind as to what he intended to do and then said: "We can hang it on the Majority Report."
The other point is this. I had in all seriousness and earnestness said that this law would have a grievous effect on the trade in Dublin, resulting in increased prices and in making the hours of work difficult, including the difficulty of getting home when work is completed. Let us examine the Minister's statement again today. The Minister is quite in earnest about it. I am not querying that at all. What the Minister says on every amendment is that we want to restore the bona fide trade, but what has the Minister done? For the purpose of getting rid of the bona fide trade, he has, in fact, taken half an hour off the bona fide trade and added an hour to the ordinary drinking time. He has reduced the bona fide trade, or call it what you will, from 12 o'clock to 11.30. In other words, he has taken half an hour off the bona fide trade and added an hour to the ordinary hours of drinking.
Indeed, I had a discussion some years ago on this subject with a learned professor in a public house. The learned professor was strong on the side of the argument that has been put up in this House by Senator Ó Maoláin: why do we not behave like Germany or other countries? I believe that the hours so far as Dublin is concerned were about right. I feel that there is no practical problem which is not capable of solution by effort and goodwill. I may be wrong in that on this occasion because you sometimes come across a semi-mathematical problem which is insoluble in a practical way. I regret very much, indeed, to see the increase in the hours in Dublin. What I feel all the time—and I said this once already—is that the Minister will not get the value for that which he thinks he will get. I am not querying the Minister's motives. I simply do not think he will get, particularly in the more remote parts of the country, the kind of value he expects to get for the upset to the trade.
I am not one of those people who feel that the bona fide trade around Dublin is the serious evil it is set up to be. I do not know enough about it to be able to make any definite observation but from what I have seen, it is not the serious evil it is made out to be. I should hate to see an extra hour for drinking by ordinary people who never move out from their own areas. I dislike to see it in the Bill. That is my last word on the matter.
Subsection 1 of Section 4 is pretty definite. A person shall not open or keep open any premises for the sale of intoxicating liquor. Therefore, the door must be closed at 11 o'clock or 11.30. That will be the law, and any person who is on the premises is not entitled to drink. "Or to permit any intoxicating liquor to be consumed on licensed premises." Therefore when the door is closed, nobody inside is entitled to consume liquor. I think it is quite plain, and it certainly answers Senator Murphy's point. The premises have closed; there is no drinking; and everything is shut up at 11 o'clock or 11.30, and therefore there is plenty of time to get home on the public transport system or otherwise. Some Senators made a point about the ten minutes or a quarter of an hour to finish drinks. The wording of the section does not allow that and I hope it will not allow it.
What Senator Ó Donnabháin has said will be the law when this Bill is passed. What I am trying to find out is if a man still has half a pint of stout to finish at 11.30—
What he should not have and what he will have are different things.
He might have another pint which he might not have overtaken. Does this mean that the Commissioner of the Garda Síochána will instruct his officers all over the country that if they enter a public house at a minute after 11.30 in summer time and find people just finishing their pints, these people will be brought before the district court and charged with a breach of the licensing laws? The Minister says that the law will be administered sensibly but if the law is to be administered sensibly, I suggest that a better approach would be to fix a particular hour after which it would not be permissible to sell or to buy intoxicating liquor on a licensed premises and then fix some five, ten or fifteen minutes later after which it would not be permissible for people to be on licensed premises. That would make the position clear.
As far as I can see, this section will not mean a strict adherence to the law and will lead to the position about which the Minister spoke, of people condemning small things and falling little by little into an ultimate disrespect of the laws, such as we have at present. I am satisfied that if what the Minister says is to be the position, that the law is to be administered sensibly certainly it will mean that the law will not be administered strictly. We ought to bear that in mind.
Senator O'Quigley seems to be at loggerheads with the majority in this matter. The whole notion in fixing the hours of drinking on Sundays and the opening and closing hours was to try to get an observance of the law. What the Senator is advocating now is that we should get back into the same sort of morass as we were in heretofore. Section 4 has given rise to a great deal of discussion both in this House and elsewhere simply because it seeks to limit the hours of trading. It is well known that if the law is to be rigidly enforced, then the hours of trading must be reasonable. By virtue of the fact that heretofore under area exemption orders and by reason of the bona fide system, drink could be obtained literally at any hour, those in the habit of drinking in these conditions more or less conformed to a pattern.
The Commission were of the opinion that if they did not recommend reasonable hours, then there would not be observance and that seems to be directly in conflict with what Senator O'Quigley is arguing. The Senator asks if a man who is on the premises after, say, 9 o'clock, will be prosecuted. That is a matter for the people administering the law. We hope they will take a more realistic view of it than they did of the older law and that those delegated to enforce it will enforce the law rigidly. If that is so, we shall get observance. We could all advocate various hours but to get as near as possible to the former pattern is the best plan and the only way to get a reasonable observance of the law.
It seems to me that the question of enforcement of the governed by Section 12 which says hours provided in the section is really that any person found on the premises outside of drinking hours is guilty of an offence. If the Minister is now saying that the law is to be rigidly enforced, then at least he is coming some way to meet my point of view because that will mean that the public will be cleared at 11 p.m. or at 11.30 p.m. during the four summer months. It means that the Gardaí will see to it that people will not be on the premises after 11.30 p.m. I hope I can take it that is what the Minister means. As he is the Minister responsible for the Garda I hope the law which will be passed by the Oireachtas will be strictly enforced and that it will not be a question of the exercising of discretion, or of individual guards or sergeants interpreting it in their own way. I hope the Minister will see that the law as we pass it will be enforced by the people for whom he is responsible.
I have looked up the 1927 Act and the wording of Section 2 of the 1927 Act is exactly the same as the wording of Section 4——
Save as is otherwise provided... and so on——
...it shall not be lawful for any person...to sell or expose for sale any intoxicating liquor or to open or keep open any premises for the sale of intoxicating liquor or to permit any intoxicating liquor to be consumed on licensed premises.
Similarly the permanent part, so to speak, of the other section. Section 17, which is amended here, about people being on the premises is the same. I asked the Minister a simple question. Is it true that there are decided cases —since we live under a system of case law—that in fact a publican is allowed to enable people to complete their drinks? As this wording is exactly the same, a person can make any social claim he likes about the matter and if there are decided cases—I do not know if there are——
This is a serious matter. The Senator's logic has been exposed as being worthless.
Did the Senator say C.I.E.?
There are decided cases which will allow a few minutes. I am not appealing for a few minutes. I am not appealing for anything, but, as I said, my information many years ago was that there were decided cases which allowed of a few minutes to complete the consumption of drinks already purchased. That is a simple enough idea, when the case was in relation to public houses, but it was not so in relation to clubs. It would be no harm if that were clarified. The fundamental law is not altered. The phrasing in the two Acts is exactly the same.
For the information of the Senator, there are no decided cases. In respect of the point made by Senator O'Quigley, the Senator is a lawyer and I do not see much sense in his asking me questions which he himself could answer. The Senator is no doubt aware that if somebody is found on premises one minute after 11 o'clock or 11.30, as the case may be, he is guilty of an offence. I cannot anticipate what the court's decision will be on that. but I know that, as a lawyer, the Senator would say that such person is guilty of an offence, even though he describes it as a technical offence. That would be the position.
It is true that I have instructed the Garda to see that the law is strictly enforced. I realise as fully as any Senator the difficulty of that strict enforcement, and I realise that it can be more strictly enforced in the city of Dublin, in Limerick, Galway, Waterford or places of that kind, than, say, in places between Ballina and Belmullet where there would be the difficulty of having a policeman on the spot at 11 o'clock or 11.30. But I am pretty certain that the Garda Síochána will carry out the instructions of their senior officers as effectively as it is possible to do. How effective that will be I cannot say, any more than the Senators who have already spoken, but I believe that a big effort will be made to enforce the law, and I honestly believe that the country generally will be the better of the results which will follow that strict enforcement.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments Nos. 12, 13 and 14 not moved.
Question proposed: "That Section 5 stand part of the Bill."
In view of the fact that the principal amendments were lost, there was no point in moving amendment No. 14.
I should point out that the vote on this amendment is governed by the vote on No. 9, which was not moved. However, the Senator may if he wishes, make a few remarks on the section.
I should like to bring the Minister's attention to what is provided in paragraph (b) of the section. At the end of that paragraph, there is provision for hotels and restaurants or what we now know as the bona fide houses to stay open until 10 o'clock on Sunday evening. The whole principle in dealing with the providing of drink with meals in this Bill is to give an extra hour after the ordinary public houses have closed during which drink may be served with meals in places where that is possible under the provisions of the Bill. Here, however, for a Sunday afternoon, the Minister is taking a different view and I am wondering if he could give us some explanation, because instead of providing just one hour during which drinks may be served with meals, it appears that for eight months of the year two extra hours are provided, and we then might have a situation when it would be worth people's while to leave a public house, closing for eight months of the year at 8 o'clock, and to travel to some place where they would be served drink with meals. It would not be worth their while to do this where there was simply a difference of one hour.
We are providing an opportunity and a right to an individual to have a meal and, at the same time, with that meal to order a drink, but the drink must be ordered and paid for with the meal.
I know that, but that facility is being provided for weekdays and for Sundays. On weekdays and on Sundays for four months of the year, it will be an additional hour after the public houses must close, but for eight months of the year, there will be an additional two hours, which runs counter to the general practice set out in the Bill I wonder is there any special reason for that.
This is the section providing for the consumption of liquor in hotels and restaurants where a substantial meal has been ordered. Senator Ó Siochfhradha raised a question as to what was meant by a substantial meal when speaking on the Second Stage. I can see considerable differences of interpretation as to what constitutes a substantial meal. The phrase is a very relative one, because what may be a substantial meal for one person may be only an appetiser for another. I am not at all satisfied that the term is the most satisfactory that might be devised.
Unless people have some indication of what is meant by "substantial meal", there will be a great deal of confusion and lack of uniformity in the administration of the law. For instance, if people can get sandwiches and continue to drink in a lounge part of a hotel for the hour specified in this section, is there any difference between them and the person in a public house doing the same thing? Will sandwiches be regarded as a substantial meal?
I do not know that there is a great deal of merit in saying that the substantial meal should be ordered and paid for at the same time as the drink because a man could ring up from five miles away and order a meal and a bottle of wine, or a half-dozen bottles of stout, or whatever he wanted. I do not think there is a great deal of use in putting words into legislation which have no practical effect. The most important thing that arises is what view the Garda authorities will take of what is a substantial meal —that is what it boils down to—since the term is so relative to the appetite or constitution of different people.
The words "substantial meal" are already in previous licensing legislation in connection with hotels. People are permitted to order, pay for and consume a substantial meal in a hotel at hours which are not the ordinary trading hours in public houses. That has been the law for many years and the Garda authorities and the courts, I presume, have had to interpret "substantial meal" from time to time. Personally I consider people should be encouraged to eat. I feel that if better provision were made in public houses to enable people to consume meals, it would be to the great advantage of the drinking public. There would be less intoxication and it would mean that the premises would be much better kept. I believe that one cause of the amount of public drunkenness we see is that people are hungry and no meal can be obtained in the place in which they are drinking.
Senator O'Quigley mentioned sandwiches. If a person consumes a substantial number of sandwiches, that would be a substantial meal. At any rate, it would be very difficult for the Garda to be able to prove the amount of food that had been consumed. People may have reached the coffee stage, for example, at the time the Garda arrive. I believe that would be a reasonably good definition, but the Garda would have to interpret it as they find it, and I do not think they should interpret the words too strictly so long as the facilities are available, and so long as the room does not adjoin the bar so that they cannot go from the bar to that room. I feel that anything the Oireachtas can do to provide that type of premises is certainly desirable.
This question of the "substantial meal caused the most amusing and lighthearted part of the discussions which took place in the Dáil because there were all sorts of extraordinary suggestions as to what constitutes a substantial meal. They were so varied that it was impossible for anyone to decide what could in effect be described as a "substantial meal". The fact of the matter is, of course, that this question has been dealt with in legislation as long as the licensing laws have been in operation, so we must presume that the courts have some definition of their own.
I rather imagine that a good test would be whether the individual partaking of that right was there in fact to get a meal or to get drink. If he is there merely to get drink, he is probably prepared to pay what the restaurateur would regard as payment for a substantial meal, and whether he takes the meal or not is a matter of indifference, so long as he complies with the law in ordering a drink and what the law would regard as a substantial meal. Actually, we must leave it to the courts. The discussions which took place in the other House finished up by everyone agreeing that that was the only test that could be applied—the test that the courts would make the decision as to what was a substantial meal. The fact that it has been in operation for so long makes me feel it will not create any difficulty in legal circles or on the Bench in the future.
Question put and agreed to.
Amendments 15 to 18, inclusive, not moved.
Section 6 agreed to.
Sections 7 to 13, inclusive, agreed to.
NEW SECTION.
I move amendment No. 19:—
Before section 14 to insert the following new section:—
"(1) Where a person (in this section referred to as the applicant) duly gives notice of his intention to apply for a licence in respect of premises (in this section referred to as the new premises) to which no licence is attached and at the proceedings in the Circuit Court in relation to such application, the applicant shows to the satisfaction of the Court—
(a) that the premises (in this section referred as the original premises) were demolished by the applicant not more than two years before the date on which the said notice by the applicant was served on the county registrar, and
(b) that a licence was attached to the original premises when they were so demolished, and
(c) that at the time of the said hearing before the Circuit Court the applicant is in lawful occupation of new premises which he has erected or caused to have been erected upon the site of the original premises (or upon a site substantially the same as that site or upon a site in the immediate vicinity of that site), and
(d) that no trade or business had been carried on in the original premises since they were so demolished, and
(e) that the new premises are more suitable than the original premises for the business of selling intoxicating liquor,
the Court shall, notwithstanding anything contained in the Act of 1902, cause such certificate as is mentioned in Section 5 of the Licensing (Ireland) Act, 1833, to be given to the applicant declaring him to be duly entitled to receive a licence in respect of the new premises, unless the Court, in consequence of an objection made under Section 4 of that Act, prohibits under that section the issuing of such licence on one or more of the following grounds, that is to say, the character, misconduct, or unfitness of the applicant or the unfitness of the new premises.
(2) Where, in a case to which the foregoing subsection of this section applies, the certificate referred to in that subsection is given to the applicant, the following provisions shall apply and have effect, that is to say:—
(a) the licence (in this subsection referred as the new licence) to which the applicant is declared by the said certificate to be entitled and which is granted to him in pursuance of that certificate shall be a licence of the same character in all respects (including conditions inserted therein) as the licence (in this subsection referred to as the old licence) which was attached to the original premises when they were so demolished:
(b) nothing in the Act of 1902 shall operate to prevent the grant of the new licence to the applicant;
(c) upon the grant of the new licence, the old licence (if then subsisting) shall be extinguished;
(d) every (if any) conviction which was recorded on the old licence under Section 25 of the Act of 1927 and either (as the case may be) would but for the expiry of that licence, have continued to be so recorded thereon at the time of the grant of the new licence or continues to be so recorded on the old licence immediately before it is extinguished shall be deemed to be recorded on the new licence under the said section and to have been so recorded on the date on which it was recorded on the old licence;
(e) if paragraph 1 of Section 2 of the Act of 1902 applies in respect of the original premises, those premises shall, upon the old licence being extinguished in pursuance of this subsection, cease to be premises to which the said paragraph applies, and the Act of 1902 shall thenceforward have effect accordingly in relation to the original premises, and the said paragraphs shall thenceforward apply to the new premises."
This is a fairly lengthy amendment, but the principle is fairly simple. I notice the Minister has a somewhat similar amendment down and I am not very concerned as to which of the two is accepted, provided the situation which has arisen, and is likely to arise, is adequately safeguarded by one or the other.
The purpose of my amendment is to provide for the kind of case where a person instead of building a new premises in the vicinity of an old premises which still exists at the time the application for the transfer of the licence from the old premises to the new premises is made, actually pulls down the old premises—or pulls them down, in part—and builds upon part of the old premises, and part of the new premises which was licensed is built on portion of the old premises which was not licensed. In these circumstances, the law at present does not permit either the circuit court or any other court to grant a licence in respect of the new premises.
I am aware of at least one case where the owner of a public house conducted his business in a premises with a thatched roof which was falling into disrepair. He pulled down the old premises and erected a new building almost but not quite on the site of the old premises. When he applied to the court for a transfer of the licence from the old premises, he was met with the objection that the old premises were demolished and gone and there was nothing from which to transfer. He was not entitled, under another provision of the Licensing Acts, to get the licence transferred to the new premises as being in the vicinity of the old premises because they were not; they were almost the same as the old premises. The judge said he could not accept the new premises as being in the vicinity of the old premises since they were almost on the same site. The case of the publican in question did not come within either section of the different Acts. He was not strictly on the old site and yet was not far enough removed from it to be in the vicinity of the old site. Consequently, he was not entitled to a licence.
It is clear that the intention of the Legislature is not to permit an increase in the number of licences. This section does not do anything to help to bring about an increase in the number of licences. It means that where an old premises has been, completely demolished, the licence in respect of it will be regarded as continuing for the purpose of the Acts and will be transferred to the new and improved premises on application to the court.
The other provisions of the amendment deal with the extinction of the old licence and are merely routine provisions in sections of this kind in the intoxicating liquor licensing laws. Would I be in order in referring to the Minister's amendment?
I think we could take amendments Nos. 19, 20 and 21 together, if the Minister is agreeable, as it would shorten the discussion.
Might I refer to the only difference in substance I see between the Minister's amendment and mine? It occurs in paragraph (d) under which the applicant for a licence in respect of a new premises will have to show that he is in lawful occupation of the site and remains of the original premises. The difficulty in connection with the remains of the existing premises is that it may well happen that on occasions the whole premises may have been demolished and the new public house built or substantially built upon the site of the old premises. Would the Minister be disposed, perhaps on Report Stage, to accept an amendment to insert after "remains" the words "if any" which would capture both positions? I refer to paragraph (d) of the Government amendment. The Minister might require time to consider it. As it stands, a situation might arise where there may be no part of the old building to which a licence was attached existing on the date of application. As it stands, the publican would have to establish in court that he was in lawful occupation of the site. There appears to be implicit in this that also on the site there are the remains of the old premises, which may not be the case. If it is amended to incorporate "the remains, if any", it would cover the situation.
I feel bound to express my pleasure and appreciation that the Minister has gone to the trouble not alone of indicating his acceptance of the principle of this amendment but of taking the trouble to put down his own amendment at this stage to meet the kind of hardship case which I know has happened in one instance within the past two years.
This Government amendment is, in effect. Senator O'Quigley's amendment improved. He is now taking me somewhat by surprise. We had the amendment in Senator O'Quigley's name very carefully examined by the draftsman and the specialists who deal with these matters. This is the form in which we believe we could have accepted his amendment. He has now raised another point. Between now and Report Stage, I shall have the matter looked into to see if we can accept the view he has expressed.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Government amendment No. 20:
NEW SECTION.
Before Section 14 to insert the following section:
(1) Where a person (in this section referred to as the applicant) duly gives notice of his intention to apply for a licence in respect of premises (in this section referred to as the new premises) to which no licence is attached and at the proceedings in the Court in relation to such application, the applicant shows to the satisfaction of the Court—
(a) that premises (in this section referred to as the original premises) were demolished not more than two years before the date on which the said notice by the applicant was served on the County Registrar or District Court Clerk, as the case may be, and
(b) that a licence was attached to the original premises when they were so demolished, and
(c) that at the time of the said hearing before the Court the new premises are lawfully occupied by the applicant and—
(i) that they are located on the site of the original premises, or
(ii) if they are not so located, that they are located in the immediate vicinity and that the location of the new premises where they are rather than on the site of the original premises is unlikely of itself to have a materially adverse effect on the business carried on in any licensed premises in the neighbourhood, and
(d) that at the time of the said hearing before the Court the applicant is in lawful occupation of the site and remains of the original premises or that he has procured the consent of the lawful occupier of such site and remains to the making of the application, and if the licence referred to in paragraph (b) of this subsection is then subsisting, to the extinguishing thereof if and when a licence is granted pursuant to this section, and
(e) that the new premises are more suitable than the original premises for the business of selling intoxicating liquor,
the Court shall, notwithstanding anything contained in the Act of 1902, cause such certificate as is mentioned in section 5 of the Licensing (Ireland) Act, 1833, to be given to the applicant declaring him to be duly entitled to receive a licence in respect of the new premises, unless the Court, in consequence of an objection made under section 4 of that Act, prohibits under that section the issuing of such licence on one or more of the following grounds, that is to say, the character, misconduct, or unfitness of the applicant or the unfitness of the new premises.
(2) Where, in a case to which the foregoing subsection of this section applies, the certificate referred to in that subsection is given to the applicant, the following provisions shall apply and have effect, that is to say:—
(a) the licence (in this subsection referred to as the new licence) to which the applicant is declared by the said certificate to be entitled and which is granted to him in pursuance of that certificate shall be a licence of the same character in all respects (including conditions inserted therein) as the licence (in this subsection referred to as the old licence) which was attached to the original premises when they were so demolished;
(b) nothing in the Act of 1902 shall operate to prevent the grant of the new licence to the applicant;
(c) upon the grant of the new licence, the old licence (if then subsisting) shall be extinguished;
(d) any conviction which became recorded on the old licence under section 25 of the Act of 1927 at a time (if any) when the applicant was the holder of the licence and which, either, is still recorded thereon or would, but for the expiry of that licence, be still recorded thereon at the time of the grant of the new licence by the Revenue Commissioners shall be deemed to be recorded on the new licence under that section and to have been so recorded on the date when it became recorded on the old licence;
(e) upon the grant of the new licence, the original premises shall, for the purposes of the Act of 1902, be deemed never to have been licensed.
(3) Where, before the demolition of the original premises, an application in relation to the new premises or (if the new premises have not been constructed) the proposed new premises is made to the Court under section 14 of this Act, the original premises shall be deemed, for the purposes of that section, but not otherwise, to have been demolished, but an application under section 16 of this Act in respect of the new premises shall not be granted unless the Court (being otherwise satisfied, having regard to the provisions of that section, to grant the application) is satisfied that the original premises have been demolished."
Amendment agreed to.
Section 14 agreed to.
Sections 15 to 18, inclusive, agreed to.
SECTION 19.
Question proposed: "That Section 19 stand part of the Bill."
This is a continuation of the provision whereby a person can obtain a licence for a hotel by applying in advance to the circuit court for a declaration that the premises if built in a particular way and registered with Bord Fáilte are up to their standard. This section has given rise to some difficulty. At times, Bord Fáilte have certain requirements which, in the view of hoteliers and other people, are unreasonable. The continuation of a licence under this section is contingent upon the applicant continuing to be registered in the register of hotels kept by Bord Fáilte Éireann. The only authority in the State which should be entitled to deprive a hotelier of his licence should be a court, not a body of officials under the style of Bord Fáilte Éireann or Bord anything else.
It has been represented to me by different hoteliers that what Bord Fáilte require to be done in order to keep a hotel registered or get a change from one grading to another has been quite unreasonable. I know of a case where a hotelier is doing a particular line of business for which he has an adequate clientele. The hotelier in a case of that kind would feel that, if he were to expend £2,000 or £3,000 upon his premises, he would have to raise his tariffs. If he raised his rates of charges, he would not get the kind of business he has been doing up to the present because the people who are prepared to come to his hotel would not be prepared to come to his hotel and pay, perhaps, 3/- or 4/- a day more. Consequently, such a hotelier would be quite likely to run into trouble with Bord Fáilte and find himself off the register.
I wonder whether the Minister has made any representations about this or whether he considers it would meet the case if, upon an application for a certificate, the representative of Bord Fáilte were empowered to come in and object to the licence being granted in respect of the hotel. That would seem to me to be much fairer to the hotel proprietor and would meet the reasonable requirements of Bord Fáilte in that they could put their point of view and their objections to the court who would decide whether, in fact, the hotel proprietor was unreasonable in refusing to comply with certain requirements of Bord Fáilte or not.
I think it is quite unfair and contrary to the idea of fair play we have here that a person should be deprived of a licence because some official in Bord Fáilte, against whom there is no appeal, decides that a particular hotel keeper should be struck off the register. That is a matter which even at this stage the Minister might consider.
Bord Fáilte is an organisation established by law and I feel pretty certain that every Senator would say that the improvements in respect of hotels in this country are needed and that there must be some standard in relation to what we consider good class hotels. The officers of Bord Fáilte are just the same as the officers of the law. They will not act in a ruthless manner merely because they have some grievance against an individual.
There would be a question of the examination of the conditions existing in the particular hotel they might have to take action against. I believe that every action taken by Bord Fáilte in respect of the standardisation and improvement of hotels will be to the benefit of this State from the point of view of the provision of proper facilities for visitors coming to this country. As Senators are now aware, the tourist industry is one of the biggest industries operating in the State at the present time. It has been the object of successive Governments to see that industry so established that it will improve with the years. Senators who have visited other countries have been impressed by the facilities available, especially the facilities provided for them through the medium of good class hotels. The success or failure of an industry of that kind depends on having hotels to which people will come and in which they will get good attention. If they go away fully satisfied that they got full attention, the tendency will be for them to come back again.
I do not think that the Senator need have any fears as to the manner in which Bord Fáilte will deal with this matter because their ideal all the time will be not only to see that hotels are improved but that there will be still more and more hotels of the quality they desire to have established. I think the Senator, having drawn attention to this matter, can rest assured that there will be nothing in the nature of sanguinary action taken against any hotel.
I hesitate to speak again on this section because the Minister does not seem to be convinced that there is very much point in the case I am making. I know that Bord Fáilte is a body established by law and that it is doing a great deal of good work. I fully appreciate the absolute desirability, in the interests of promoting the tourist trade, of having the highest possible standards and that there must be somebody to regulate these and try to encourage people in the tourist trade to attain them. I appreciate the effect that will have on our tourist trade but what I am concerned with is that, human nature being what it is, you will always find that in the operation and the carrying out of the duties of these statutory bodies, you run into an officious kind of official who will have his own ideas or who will run foul of some person over whom he has some authority or right of inspection. I have known cases where an inspector of Bord Fáilte has gone along to an hotel proprietor and said that unless he did this, this and this, he would be taken down from Grade A to Grade B or Grade B1, or whichever is the next grade below Grade A.
The Senator is not objecting to that?
Perhaps the Minister would hear me out? This was a smallish hotel in the most unlikely place in the west of Ireland. It was a small hotel in a small town. The hotel proprietor protested that none of these things was necessary. I happen to know the hotel, having been there on occasions. I was amazed to find such a finely appointed hotel in such an unlikely out of the way place in county Mayo.
Are there not other hotels in that place?
I do not think so. There would be some boarding houses or guest houses. The proprietor pointed out the unreasonableness of these requirements. He also pointed out some other things which the inspector would be better employed in doing such as trying to ensure a continuous flow of water from the county council water supply. He asked the inspector to use her good offices to achieve that with the county council and the county manager. He then asked the inspector if she would put her requirements to him in writing and they would be dealt with. The inspector, finding herself in the position where she had really got some difficult work to do making representations to the county council and the county manager, very quickly forgot about the requirements which were necessary in her view and issued whatever was the appropriate certificate for continuing the grading.
That is one example. I know of other cases where unreasonable demands have been made by people who are perhaps over-enthusiastic for attaining the standards which are desirable and I do not think it is right. Mark you, there is no appeal to the Minister for Industry and Commerce against any finding of Bord Fáilte and, as far as I know, no appeal to a district justice or to a court to say that Bord Fáilte was wrong in not registering a hotel in its register. Mark you, if on the basis of the reports of an inspector which may be quite prejudiced, if an hotel proprietor finds that he is not on the register, then the hotel's intoxicating liquor licence is gone. It does not seem to square with our ideas of protection for the citizen or with our ideas of fair play, to say that there is no appeal whatsoever against the decision of an official which may very seriously affect the livelihood of a person engaged in the tourist trade.
I again submit to the Minister that he should consider this matter in the light of the experiences I have recounted and put Bord Fáilte merely in the position that on the application for the renewal of a licence which was given under this section of the Tourist Traffic Act, they can come in as a party to object to the granting of the licence because certain conditions have not been complied with. Then the Circuit Court can consider these and say whether or not they are reasonable. I see no reason why Bord Fáilte should have the power or the authority to decide whether or not a person is to have the renewal of his licence. I see no reason why that should be and you will not find it anywhere else in the statutes, that a person's livelihood in a matter of this kind is dependent upon the executive act of a statutory body as to whether a person is included in a register or not. I would urge the Minister not to close his mind on this matter but to take time to consider it and to put Bord Fáilte only in the position in which I have suggested they should be, on the application for a renewal of a licence.
I can assure the Senator that there will not be any question of a closed mind on the matter. He did mention in the course of his remarks that he was worried about certain hotels. This section will not be operated, of course, except in respect of hotels established after the passing of this Bill. I could relate, but I do not think it would be in the interests of the hotel, an experience which some friends of mine had in a hotel. Certainly, having heard what my friends had to say, I would say it deserved to be degraded.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 20 to 24, inclusive, agreed to.
SECTION 25.
Government amendment No. 21:—
In page 17, to delete subsection (2) and insert the following subsection:
"(2) Subsection (1) of Section 22 (which relates to the grant of new licences in respect of premises substituted for destroyed premises) of the Act of 1943 is hereby amended by—
(a) the substitution in paragraph (a) of ‘two years' for ‘twelve months', and
(b) the insertion in paragraph (c) after ‘remains thereof' of ‘or that he has procured the consent of the lawful occupier of such premises or of the site and remains thereof to the making of the application, and if the licence referred to in paragraph (b) of this subsection is then subsisting, to the extinguishing thereof if and when a licence is granted pursuant to this section'."
This being a consequential amendment, perhaps we need not have any discussion on it.
Amendment agreed to.
Section 25, as amended, agreed to.
SECTION 26.
Question proposed: "That Section 26 stand part of the Bill."
This is the section which enables a six-day licensee to obtain a seven-day licence on application to the court and upon payment of £200 to the Revenue Commissioners. I mentioned this section to the Minister on the Second Reading and I am wondering whether he has considered the matter since. I can envisage certain small public houses owned by people who are advancing in years, or owned by widows who will not be able, within the two year period permitted under this Bill, to find a sum of £200 to pay to the Revenue Commissioners and who may well not have such a thriving business as to be able to get it by way of loan from a bank. Very often you find that the title of a licensed premises, despite the requirements of the Act, for the purpose of transfer, is not in order and consequently it is not always possible for the licensee for the time being to have such title as to enable a bank to advance any money on the security of the title.
I wonder would the Minister not consider providing that this £200 would be payable over a period of, say, five years, during which time the added business which would flow from the seven-day licence—presuming that the six-day licence operated as such always—might enable the licensee to pay the money. Two hundred pounds is a very substantial sum of money to-be paid out in one lump and it will not injure the Revenue Commissioners since the money will be paid eventually. I would ask the Minister if he considers under the existing sections it could be paid over a period or whether the Revenue Commissioners can be paid in that way?
In regard to this section, I made it very clear on the Second Stage that the Government had said their last words in this respect. They had, as I mentioned then, made several compromises to try to meet the strong case which was being made in regard to the six-day licensee being given the right to become a seven-day licensee. The Government at all times had to keep in the forefront of their mind the equities which would be interfered with by reason of our agreeing to the various suggestions that were made in regard to the seven-day licences. The seven-day licensee is going to be affected by this and we thought when dealing with the matter in the first instance that, in the suggestion that if a six-day licensee were prepared to extinguish one full seven-day licence in the same district, or two six-day licences in other circumstances, we were going very far to meet the requests made to us.
When we had put these proposals forward, we were confronted with the suggestion that it would be impossible to purchase these licences for extinction. We were told that the prices were going up, that in fact a corner was being made in regard to these licences, and that one could not buy them, for prices were being demanded as high as £800. The lowest estimate I heard mentioned in the other House was £150. In an effort still to meet the requests from Deputies, we made this suggestion, that we would fix the price, and that since the lowest estimate was £150, we would say £200 would be the price of these licences for the future. In other words, a person who was anxious to purchase one of these could purchase it at a price certainly less than £200, because the seller would know that that was the limit he could get and therefore he must undersell as far as the £200 was concerned.
We went a long way towards meeting the requests of Deputies, and when I was taking the Second Stage here, I intimated to the House, in order to avoid anything in the nature of a prolonged discussion on the question, that this was the last word the Government had to say on this matter. As far as I am concerned, I have to accept that as the position. I think this is a tremendous advantage and gain. We have had quite a volume of correspondence from six-day licensees congratulating us on our decision, and complimenting and thanking us.
Any person who is not able to raise £200 from the bank would be well advised to continue to carry on a six-day business and not try to advance into a still more intricate type of business. Any six-day licensee who thinks he can improve his position by reason of the fact that he can acquire a seven-day licence can certainly raise money from a bank pretty easily at a reasonable interest, whereas if the State were to do anything in that respect, the administrative costs, as the Senator must be fully aware, would be excessive. The cost of keeping accounts of the instalments paid and so on, and the interest, would be, in my opinion anyhow, much in excess of what a bank would charge.
I appreciate that the Government yielded to the persuasion of the Opposition on this question, but the Minister seems to harbour what I shall not call a grudge or resentment but some idea that these people ought not to be helped any further. If we are to assist six-day licensees to obtain a seven-day licence, we ought to do it with a good grace and help people to obtain the full seven-day licence in the easiest possible fashion. It is all very well to say that if a person cannot afford £200, he should get out of business, but this is a new expenditure which people will have to undergo within a period of two years from the passing of this Bill. It is not something people have been able to budget for.
I am certain that there will be six-day licensees whose title would be in such a state of disorder that they would not be able to obtain any loan from a bank, because no bank would give a loan on the title on some of them. Despite the fact that on the transfer or renewal of licence under the existing law the personal representative of the deceased licensee should always be before the court, this does not work out in fact and in practice. I do not see that there would be any real cost if the sum were to be paid in five instalments. I cannot see that the Revenue would lose anything if the suggestion I make were adopted.
As regards the question of cost, we have in subsection (7) of the section what, to my mind, is an extraordinary provision for a very small anticipated income. There is to be a special fund established, and the Revenue people have to see that all this money goes into this Restricted Licences Conversion Fund. Then the Minister for Finance cannot in the ordinary way dispose of the assets of this Fund. It requires a special Act of the Oireachtas. It seems to me to be remarkable to require a special Act of the Oireachtas about a fund which may not be more than £5,000 or £6,000. The expense to the State of setting out the heads of a Bill, the preparatory work involved in preparing it, and the actual cost of printing and of the time Parliament is going to take up in an effort to dispose of what may only be a very small sum, will be considerable, and still the Minister will not agree to enable the six-day licensees to pay by instalment. Not alone will that fund have to be accounted for every year by the Minister for Finance but a special report must be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas. That is the kind of administrative cost which the Minister ought to be avoiding and which will produce no good. The attitude of the Minister to my suggestion and to subsection (7) is very inconsistent.
Senator O'Quigley referred to the fact that the title may not be in order and consequently a bank may not be prepared to accept the property as security for the advances which the Minister suggests may be required to pay this £200. The Senator is aware that in order to obtain a licence, it is necessary to produce evidence of title in court, and if the licensee dies, it is necessary to take out administration or probate and produce that document to the district court before the licence can be transferred. If the Court is prepared to accept that evidence of title and transfer, the licence to that individual, surely then the banks would be equally prepared to advance to a licensee who had a similar title to the property.
If one extended the period from two years to five, it would mean that many people would take advantage of it. I do not think that is desirable. Personally, I think there are far too many licensed premises throughout rural Ireland. The population, of rural Ireland has fallen considerably and the population of the cities has increased substantially. One of the reasons licensed premises in the rural areas have fallen into decay is that they were not doing the business they were doing years ago. These people will have the advantage of selling their licence to another six-day licensee who wishes to obtain a seven-day licence, and the person with the seven-day licence may get more for it by selling it than the £200 referred to in the section. At any rate, I think the sooner a fund is built up whereby licences can be extinguished, and the sooner that fund is availed of by people who are prepared to extinguish their licences, the better for the community generally. For that reason I feel the Minister is perfectly right in confining the section to two years.
Like the previous speaker, I subscribe to the view that there are too many licensed premises in the country already. There are 12,000, and that is generally conceded to be 4,000 or 5,000 too many. It was admitted on all sides that the Minister had met the six-day licence problem fairly and squarely by the action he took, having regard to the general aim of all licensing legislation since the early 1920s to reduce as far as possible the number of public houses in the country, with the consequent general aim that those engaged in the trade would get a reasonable living from it. I think it could be argued that the Minister has fairly good grounds for resisting any attempt to nibble away further the powers contained in the Bill with regard to the six-day licensees. The majority of the six-day licence holders admit that they get fairly decent terms under the Bill, although they submitted a memorandum and made reference to the fact that they make up roughly one-eighth of the licensed trade in the country.
Like Senator Walsh, I subscribe to the view that apart from the decreased drinking, if you like, in the rural areas, the pattern of drinking in general has changed. That is due to many causes. New elements have entered into drinking conditions. Motor cars have brought changed circumstances in that regard, and the standard of drinking as it was known is passing into history. People who enjoy a drink are now more inclined to go to a lounge bar, and for that reason, together with the reasons adduced already, I think, as I said, that the powers in the Bill should be retained.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 27 to 34, inclusive, agreed to.
SECTION 35.
Question proposed: "That Section 35 stand part of the Bill."
As the memorandum explains, this is simply an amending section which deals with the searching of clubs by the Garda. I wonder why clubs should be put in a special category in this matter, and why it should be more difficult to apply the law to clubs than to ordinary public houses. An ordinary Garda or sergeant can see that the law is obeyed in public houses, but he cannot do so in respect of clubs, unless he gets a prior authorisation from an inspector or an officer of higher rank. That seems to me to be putting some sort of bar, and making it more difficult to have the law observed or enforced in clubs than in other places where intoxicating liquor is sold. I think that is an unwarranted discrimination against public houses.
I should like to ask the Minister if there is any good reason why a sergeant, or other member of the Garda should not be free to see that the clubs abide by the law as well as the ordinary public houses, without having to go through all the channels to get prior authorisation from a higher officer before making a search, if he has observed that the law is not being obeyed in a club. It might be a week or so before he could get the authorisation to search and a tip-off might be given to the club, and everything would be in order when the eventual search was made, whereas if a Garda sees that the law is not being observed in a public house, he can immediately step in and take the proper action. I wonder would the Minister explain why there is that bar in respect of the existing clubs and why the law should not be the same for them as for the ordinary public houses?
A club, of course, as the Senator realises, is a private institution with restricted membership, whereas a public house is open and free to everyone who wishes to utilise it. The difficulty about the person by whom the warrant could be issued was due initially to a misinterpretation of the rank of officers. Heretofore, the word "officer" was used. An "officer" of the Garda Síochana relates only to the ranks from superintendent upwards, but, due to a misinterpretation of what "officer" meant, an inspector was, so to speak, excluded. An inspector is not an officer of the Garda Síochána. I discovered that only since I had association with the Department of Justice. Like whoever misinterpreted the question heretofore, I always believed that the inspector was an officer. Now we are including the inspector from the point of view that he is more easily available and that there are more inspectors than superintendents.
The inspector would be much more easily available to secure a warrant to search a club if there were evidence that the regulations were not being strictly carried out. From that point of view, the club is like a home. You cannot enter it as you can enter a public house. You must have a warrant. Whether anyone could give prior notice to the club members is a matter with which neither I nor the police could have much concern. We could not do anything very much about it. The law will, I hope, be as strictly enforced in respect of clubs as it will be in respect of the ordinary public houses.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 36
Government amendment No. 22:
In page 22, to add to subsection (2) the following paragraph:
"(b) Where the holder of a licence is convicted after the passing of this Act of an offence to which Part III of the Act of 1927 applies and which was committed before such passing, the conviction shall not be recorded on the licence under Section 25 of the Act of 1927 and such holder shall for the purposes of the said subsection (2) and the said subsection (4) be deemed never to have been so convicted."
I want to thank the Minister for amendment No. 22. I drew attention last week to the matter. I explained that I was to defend five different publicans in my village. One cannot suggest that the law was not being enforced adequately in that village. It was necessary to apply for an adjournment. If the Bill were passed in the meantime, before the next court possibly in two months' time, the justice would have had no option in any subsequent offence but to endorse the licence. If these publicans committed a breach of the licensing laws between now and the passing of the Act, it would be mandatory on the court to endorse their licences. In any subsequent offence, it would also be mandatory to endorse the licence. It is the section that was previously worded in relation to the date of the conviction rather than in relation to the date the offence had been committed. The amendment means that the Act will apply only to a conviction which takes place after the Bill has become law.
Perhaps it was just as well that the courts did take the particular type of action because it has brought to light what Senator Louis Walsh brought to our attention. For some reason not known to me, in dealing with cases such as those described by Senator Louis Walsh, the courts adjourned the cases until 30th September which, naturally, would come within the scope of this Act if this Act were law by that time.
Perhaps it was just as well that we should have got this enlightenment. We have now taken precautions that the new Act will not be enforceable on an adjourned case of that kind.
Section 36, as amended, agreed to.
Section 37 agreed to.
SECTION 38.
Question proposed: "That Section 38 stand part of the Bill."
It appears that the section withdraws to a large extent, if not completely, the application of the existing Weights and Measures Act from the design and markings on bottles, and so on, of the licensed trade. It is very desirable that the existing law should be maintained, unless some strong case exists for its repeal. Any relaxation of the existing law could almost certainly open up the possibility of great abuse, unless some type of satisfactory safeguards are provided. I invite the Minister to assure us that nothing is being done in the Bill by the withdrawal of the application of the existing Weights and Measures Act that will at any future date or in any sense tend to weaken or rescind the existing safeguards in this respect.
The manufacturers of these bottles will continue to be the same manufacturers. They will be the same sized bottles: there are a number of sizes. In this case, each bottle will have a mark on its neck and that will be the simplest guide to everybody who purchases a bottle of stout or whatever the contents of the bottle may be. It will certify that they are getting a half pint, a pint, or whatever the amount may be.
This question raised a considerable amount of debate in the Dáil. There were some fears that we would leave the matter in such a state that people might not get the measure to which they were entitled. We allayed those fears. The manufacturers of the beverages which go into these bottles were themselves concerned about this matter, including Messrs. Guinness. When we explained the position fully to the various industrialists concerned, they expressed their complete satisfaction with what we were doing. They were satisfied everything was straight and above-board and that it would be more expeditious as well as a saving of money to the people concerned.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 39 and 40 agreed to.
Schedule and Title agreed to.
Bill reported with amendments.
With regard to Senator O'Quigley's amendment No. 19. I suggest that my amendment—it is a very minor amendment—could be circulated tomorrow when the Seanad meets. In that way, we would be able to deal with it. Perhaps if the Seanad thought fit, they might be able to give me the other Stages then.
I should like to express my thanks and gratification for getting so far.
Report Stage ordered for Wednesday, 22nd June, 1960.
