Fergus Finlay: Liberalising our alcohol laws is the populist policy we certainly do not need

Time-bound and tailored. That was the relief Doherty was looking for. Actually, not an unreasonable proposition in my view.

For years, people taking out mortgages were encouraged to get trackers and stick to them.

We’ve had scandals over the way banks tried to cheat people away from tracker mortgages. 

Now suddenly, because of pressures they have done nothing to cause, people on tracker mortgages are becoming the first victims of interest rate hikes considered necessary to drive down inflation.

And in the case of a lot of families, it’s really hurting. Thirty years ago, I lived with the fear of losing our family home over rapidly rising interest rates, and I know exactly the toll it takes.

If it goes on it may well again cost some families their homes. So it’s something that needs to be looked at, at least.

But Pearse Doherty has never asked a reasonable question as far as Leo is concerned. Immediately, the Tánaiste, applying the nickname “Kwasi Doherty” (a reference to sacked UK chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng), accused the Sinn Féin spokesperson and his party of nothing but cheap populism — the kind of populism that had learned nothing from the experience of the UK.

And, at precisely the same time, his Government was putting the finishing touches to “reform” of the licensing law that amounted to nothing but cheap populism — the kind of populism that has learned nothing from our centuries-old relationship with alcohol.

Minister's baffling press release

The headline on Justice Minister Helen McEntee’s press release announcing the “reform” said our existing laws are antiquated. 

Again and again throughout the release she said the new laws would be designed to protect people, communities, neighbourhoods.

They would protect young people. They would even protect women from sexual harassment. 

It’s all there in the press release on the Government’s website.

In order to achieve this new sense of protective restriction, the licensing system will be moved from the circuit court to the district court — making it easier, cheaper, and quicker — and licenses will be able to be applied for and granted online where there are no objections. 

Anyone who wants to, at any age, will be able to order alcohol online, but they’ll have to have someone aged 18 or older to accept the delivery.

Pubs will be allowed to stay open 14 hours a day, seven days a week (recognised late pubs until 2.30am) and nightclubs can stay open until 6.30am, as long as they have a live band or DJ working through the night. 

This is because, according to the minister, “we do not just experience music on the dance floor. Clubbing is culture which drives creativity and shapes attitudes”.

(I have to tell you I read those two sentences several times. I still haven’t the foggiest notion what they mean.) 

Part of the rationale for all this, apparently, is that we desperately need something called a “vibrant night-time culture”. 

Again I’m sorry to say it, but I’m at a loss to understand what this means. 

Accident and emergency departments overcrowded 24/7? Ambulances stationed outside the better-known locations in the early hours? Gardaí breaking up fights at the crack of dawn? The inevitable suggestion that we need to think again about drunk tanks because there’ll be no other way of coping?

We’re offended when anyone else says it about us, but there’s a basic truth we have to face. We — the Irish — have a poisonous relationship with alcohol. The new laws can’t change that for the better.

It is often said, probably falsely, that the Inuit have 50 words for snow. It is definitely the case that we have at least that many words for being drunk — I’d run out of space if I were to list them. And every single one of them is a euphemism. 

Ireland's drink problem

It’s not that long ago in Ireland that some would say sympathetically about a man accused of domestic violence that he was “a martyr to the drink”. Tell anyone in Ireland the proper definition of binge drinking — three or more pints of beer in a sitting — and they’ll genuinely think you’re pulling their leg.

And it’s definitely the case that we don’t seem to be able to conduct any of the rites of passage of Irish life without alcohol. We drink at Christenings, at First Communions, at weddings, and at funerals. The time-honoured tradition of the Irish wake is an occasion where we’re even supposed to drink spirits — a little drop of the craythur to see the oul’ fella off.

We need more liberal licensing laws like we need a hole in the head. 

I’m writing this near a small village in Wicklow. It has several pubs, or course, but it also has two substantial supermarkets and a smaller shop, all of them fully stocked with takeaway beer and wine, and with spirits in a cupboard behind the counter.

I’m also writing this as someone who loves a drink. Even if I wanted to, I’m in no position to give anyone a personal lecture about alcohol.

But surely we have to get a grip. The most recent research I’ve seen, from the Health Research Board (HRB), states that, on average, every one of us from the age of 15 up drinks the equivalent of 113 bottles of wine or 436 pints of beer every year. Maybe we’re not the worst in the world — but according to the WHO (depending on how you read their tables) we’re seventh or eighth worst.

What that means is people dying in hospitals — three people every day according to the HRB. It means people killing other people on the roads — half of all casualties on the roads are alcohol-related. It means constant aggression, violence, and abuse, in families and elsewhere.

We’ve passed laws to try and limit this damage. We’ve set targets. We’ve invested billions in prevention programmes. We’ve watched a lot of the younger generation develop a much more responsible attitude than we had to things like drink driving, for instance.

And now, before we’ve even assessed whether some of the things we’ve put in place are having a positive impact (minimum unit pricing for alcohol, for instance), we’ve decided that the answer is liberalisation.

We’ve struggled all our lives to control the amount we drink, and suddenly the same Government that passed the Public Health (Alcohol) Act a couple of years ago has decided that we should be open all hours where alcohol is concerned.

I don’t know why they’re doing it. I don’t know if it’s vested interests, a genuine belief that “sure it’s can’t do any harm”, a misguided search for some additional increment of popularity.

I just don’t know.

All I do know for sure is that it’s bonkers. It’s change we don’t need.