Madam, - Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan's plan to close off-licenses at 10pm will merely restrict the liberty of the majority of us who drink responsibly.
In Finland, the state-run monopoly off-license chain Alko closes its doors from 4pm on Saturdays until Monday morning. This simply means that drinking at home on weekends takes more planning; in no way does it reduce binge drinking or public drunkenness. If anything, people tend to buy even more alcohol for the weekend than they need because of these restrictive hours. This can be seen plainly in any branch of Alko before closing-time on Saturdays as people rush to stock up. As a Finnish friend of mine once succinctly put it: "Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it".
What is required to tackle this problem is not restriction, but
education and a change of culture. I rarely agreed with Michael
McDowell in his day but his plans for café-bars look
increasingly like a step in the right direction. It's just a shame
that vested interests put a stop to that well conceived idea. -
Yours, etc,
DEREK LARNEY,
Islandbridge,
Dublin 8.