The Government is to adopt "a much tougher attitude" to publicans who permit drunkenness, the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, has said. Pubs which served drink to people until they got drunk should be closed down for up to a month at a time.
At present publicans can be fined for permitting drunkenness, but there is no provision for their premises to be shut down for the offence. Instead, objections can be raised at the annual licensing court to the renewal of a licence.
The new measure would be similar to, but more severe than, the current legislation, which allows pubs found guilty of serving under-age persons to be closed down by the District Court for up to seven days.
Speaking on the Pat Kenny Show on RTÉ Radio 1, Mr McDowell said: "If you are pouring out the drink especially to a young clientele you are in fact breaching the law if you make them drunk. And we are going to have to take a much tougher attitude to that, and if we find people drunk in a pub simply close the place down for a month and then you will have a different attitude."
He said there had to be a more uniform application across the State in 2003 of the law on closing down premises that serve alcohol to under-age persons.
The Minister said he did not believe any pub encouraged responsible drinking by young people. "I don't think to be honest with you that there are establishments that are focused towards responsible drinking by young people.
"I recently got a letter from a mother on the north side of Dublin who showed me a letter sent by a prominent lager manufacturer to her son, giving him tickets for three of his pals and himself to go to a major sporting event in a kind of an arena place where drink would be available.
"He got 12 vouchers for himself and his mates for pints of the beer in question and they wrote on the letter, which was interesting: 'If your mates don't turn up you can fill in their names and get 12 pints for yourself".
He said he and the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, were considering banning promotional activity in relation to drink which would put an end to "freebies" and "happy hours directed at everyone getting plastered before 8 or 9 o'clock".
In addition, he said, it was worrying that hospital accident and emergency departments now needed security because nurses and doctors were being assaulted "in a savage way" by people who had drink taken.
The level of homicides in the State, many of them stabbings and assaults fuelled by drink, was also worrying. There were 62 homicides in 2002.
"People are using knives to settle arguments or else kicking other people to death on the ground in circumstances which suggest human life is becoming cheap," he said.
Mr McDowell added that there would also have to be "a clear rethink" of drink-driving laws. He felt it was reasonable, in certain circumstances, to subject drivers to random drink and drugs testing.
"Sometimes when you see these huge car-parks outside pubs you wonder who's fooling who. If you set up a checkpoint outside one of them regularly you would probably drive the poor publican out of business or at least you would get his customers walking".
He said a specialised corps of "traffic enforcers" would be created within the Garda, the details of which were being worked out at present.
On the deportation of asylum-seekers, he said it was absurd to suggest a family should be allowed to stay in Ireland simply because their children were doing well in school.
"That is frequently cited. Look at the alternative side of that coin. Supposing you were an asylum-seeker and your children were doing bloody awfully at school. Is that a reason why I should say send them home?" He said the law on deportation would collapse if it was not enforced.