Drink awareness campaigners from Alcohol Action Ireland have warned “people will die” if new relaxed licensing laws are passed by the Government.
Ministers have already given the green light to Justice Minister, Helen McEntee, to press ahead with reforms of the system that could see drinking until six in the morning and the end of a cap on licence numbers.
It would also see a new streamlined bar licence which would allow regular pubs open until 12:30 every night, seven days a week.
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The issue must go through the committee process in Leinster House before it becomes law, with interest groups able to put their cases for and against the liberalisation of the laws.
This saw a number of groups come before TDs and Senators at the Oireachtas Justice Committee on Tuesday evening.
AAI warned about the dangers they believe expanding opening hours would present, increases in crime, more pressure on our health services and a hike in deaths from alcohol.
A spokeswoman said: “The Sale of Alcohol Bill, if enacted as proposed, will result in increased alcohol harms and deaths in Ireland.”
The AAI’s chairman, Professor Frank Murray, added: “Alcohol is no ordinary commodity, and is quite different from everything else sold in retail in Ireland.
“It is psychoactive, dependence-producing, and intoxicating.
“It is a carcinogenic, neurotoxic and teratogenic substance.
“We know that alcohol is responsible for four deaths every day – a third of them from accident or incident.
“Alongside this, hospital admission for alcohol-related liver disease increased by 262% from 1995 to 2017.”
Professor Murray said that people can die after just a very small number of drinks.
He added: “More people die from episodic (binge) drinking than in other jurisdictions.
“One third of deaths associated with alcohol use are due to episodic drinking.
“So they’re not people who are long term, problem drinkers, they are people who go out and have a few drinks, a variable number of drinks, two drinks and they get in a car may be harmful enough to do it, or maybe they go out and they fall or they drown or they become depressed and suicidal.
“So a third, one in three of those deaths, that’s 500 a year, eight a week, ten a week.”
Marie Lawless, of ICAAN (Irish Community Action on Alcohol Network) wants a special licence to be introduced for anyone who wants to supply an alcohol delivery service.
Gerry Light of the Mandate union which represents hospitality workers, and Ann Graham, CEO of TII (Transport Infrastructure Ireland) told the committee they were concerned about the welfare of workers if the laws change.
Mr Light called for a special new law that would make assault of a bar worker a specific offence.
He said that now is a good time to push for this protection because there is currently special consideration being given to bringing in a similar law to protect retail workers.
Ms Graham said that she believes later opening hours would require a major rejig of bus and other transport services to keep workers safe travelling home later at night and in the early hours of the morning.
The transport chief said: “If the extension of the general opening hours of licensed premises to 12:30 is enacted, the Authority will have to re-examine the timetables of bus and other public transport services to see whether it is possible to extend a proportion of these services to later operating hours in our cities, what the impact of those extensions would be on the transport operators and their staff and what the cost to the Exchequer would be to provide any additional operating hours beyond the current schedules.”
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