A judge has claimed that Irish society is incapable of handling the extended late drinking hours and has suggested that pub closing should be brought forward. He went on to say that drink was "taking over and driving young people round the bend".
Speaking at a sitting of Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court in Westport yesterday, Judge Harvey Kenny also said that publicans had a duty to run good houses and should not serve alcohol to people who were already drunk.
Speaking during his ruling in a case involving an 18-year-old woman who appeared before the court on charges of assaulting a former boyfriend in the early hours of the morning outside a night-club, Judge Kenny commented: "It must strike everybody in this court that this is a terrible tragedy, that a young girl of this age should find herself before the court on these charges. I would ask everybody, particularly members of the public, what is causing this, and to do something about it.
"We, the judiciary, are here to give sentences and to impose the law, but it is getting far too serious in all counties in the country, but particularly Mayo, as we have seen from a number of cases already this morning.
"I think the real answer is to cut back on the hours of drinking. To those people who say that this is not the cause of it, they are not telling the truth . . ."
Judge Kenny said that the young woman appearing before the court was not entirely to blame for what she had done. "She was sold alcohol by a person who applied to this court to get an exemption. Licences are granted to publicans on the basis that they run a good house, and running a good house means you do not serve alcohol to people who are already drunk. That message must go out to publicans.
"Young people are going into night-clubs when they are already over the top with alcohol. They have more alcohol and cannot handle it and end up doing things that bring them before the District Court and the Circuit Court.
"It is an appalling indictment of our society that we have to listen to this type of thing. I have every sympathy for the accused, even though it might not appear that way.
" Because we all have children, we must ask ourselves what are we, as a society, doing about this? It seems to me that we are not seriously handling the issue."