THE regulation of the drinks trade in this country is as chaotic and resistant to reform as the taxi business. The only difference between the two is that you have no difficulty in getting a drink in Dublin after midnight.
But there are hopeful signs of change. The new Dail committee system may prove its worth in tackling the legal, social and political morass surrounding the drinks trade, which has been growing steadily muckier for the past 160 years.
Last Wednesday, members of the Dail Committee on Legislation and Security had a private meeting with senior officials at the Department of Justice to examine the situation. And they opted for a full blown review of the State's liquor licensing laws.
Charlie Flanagan, chairman of the committee, later described the drink laws as "outdated, archaic, defective and confusing, involving 40 different statutes dating from Victorian days". As a solicitor from a large rural practice, where applications for special drinking exemptions are increasingly common, he knows what he is talking about.
The involvement of other solicitors, such as Derek McDowell of Labour, John O'Donoghue and Willie O'Dea of Fianna Fail, Jim O'Keeffe and Alan Shatter of Fine Gael, will provide a city/rural balance on the committee, project first hand awareness of abuses of the law and, perhaps, go some way towards containing the powerful influence of the publicans lobby.
The political muscle of publicans is formidable. A suggestion by Mervyn Taylor, the Minister for Equality and Law Reform, that he was considering levelling the playing pitch for travelling, disabled, gay and coloured people by ensuring that licensees would have to justify any refusal to serve them, caused a real political stink in 1995 and it is still rumbling along.
The massed ranks of the Fianna Fail Parliamentary Party were encouraged to reject the idea on the grounds that a publican would no longer be able to regulate his premises. If the change was made, a few TDs insisted, a licensee would be unable to eject drug dealers.
SOME Fine Gael deputies were similarly exercised. Last December, Michael Creed told the Dail the proposal was creating "extraordinary unease" among publicans and that the issue "has the same potential to destabilise the political system as the rod licence issue".
Since then, complaints from publicans have continued to flood the system and there are indications the Minister may back off, placing the onus on customers to prove a case of discrimination.
Never doubt the influence of the alcohol industry, which links brewers and distillers, publicans and hoteliers, trade unions and the tourist sector. Publicans supported the supermarket multiples before Christmas in getting a special drinks Act passed through the Dail in the extraordinarily short time of a single day.
That legislation removed restrictions on supermarkets and licensed outlets to sell alcohol on Christmas Eve, or on December 23rd if it fell on a Sunday. And Nora Owen engagingly explained it was required so that difficulties would not be caused "for those persons who rely on food shops being open during their final preparations for the festive season". Oh, yeah?
It's time the Minister for Justice and the Government came out from behind the ditch on this one. We have a real social problem with under age drinking. We have licensing laws which are honoured more in the breach than the observance. And we have, business shysters and cowboys growing wealthy from the subversion of the legal system, and a gradual erosion of Garda authority and morale.
It must be stopped. And if it requires root and branch reform of the licensing system; a transformation of opening hours; tougher penalties for the sale of alcohol to minors; and the automatic closure of premises where illegal drugs are persistently sold, so be it. The law in this area has become so complex it needs to be clarified and consolidated into a single Act.
You have six day licences, seven day licences, restaurant licences, hotel licences, night club licences, extensions, occasional licences, special exemptions and others. And all are abused to a greater or lesser degree.
The situation has been, reached where a seven day licence is now - like a taxi licence - a tradeable commodity. A licence can cost up to £70,000 and two of them are required in order to open a new public house, or to create a licence in a supermarket. That was never intended to happen.
You have varying interpretations of the law in different parts of the country as Garda superintendents regulate the trading hours for off licences and supermarkets. And you have growing abuse of the provision which allows publicans who obtain a restaurant licence to apply for late night exemptions.
The law says a restaurant licence cannot be granted unless the main business on the premises involves the supply of food. But Willie O'Dea estimated that 70 per cent of these clubs and special pubs would have to shut their doors if the law was strictly enforced. The State, he said, was turning a blind eye to the practice and was "colluding in illegality in every town and city virtually on a nightly basis".
The justification of an exemption for after hours drinking usually involves the provision of "a substantial meal" to patrons. In the 1960s, the value of such a meal was put at "not less than £2". Since then, the meal price hasn't changed. The consumer price index certainly has.
OVER the last few months there has been a sudden surge of late openings by these pub/restaurants in Dublin and a general flouting of the law in adjoining city pubs. The demand is there. Tourist numbers are up. And while the Government sits on its hands, the Garda Siochana considers the no win situation it now faces.
As Liz O'Donnell told the Dail before Christmas: "Many pubs in Dublin decide off their own bat to stay open late. .. They seem to be able to get around the licensing laws by claiming to offer a rudimentary restaurant service, and the Garda appears to turn a blind eye.
Derek McDowell favours an extension of closing times to deal with the situation. Fridays and Saturdays should be completely deregulated, he feels, or alternatively, closing time should be extended to at least 2 a.m. People should be encouraged to drink at a reasonable speed, he said, and be given greater responsibility for their own behaviour.
It's a good idea. But the members of the committee should not lose sight of the primary requirement: to impose the rule of law on all elements of the licensed trade. {CORRECTION} 96032300005