Pressure to call time on present licensing laws as drinkers and publicans want later closing

"With my hand on my heart I can tell you there's not a publican in the country who wants to work longer hours. But customers want the facility."

And an earnest Mr Joe Fulham, publican and owner of Fulham's Lounge and Bar in Navan, Co Meath, wants to give it to them. Like other rural publicans, he wants to be able to serve without limits until 12.30 a.m. all year round.

Pubs must now stop serving at 11 p.m. in the winter and 11.30 p.m. in the summer, with 30 minutes' drinking-up time.

Perhaps worse, on Sundays they cannot serve between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. "It means that on All-Ireland final day, when kick-off is at 3.30 p.m., we can't serve a pint for the first half-hour of the game," says Mr Fulham.

When two activities, so dear to the Irish heart, collide something's got to give.

This week, the South Kerry independent TD (and publican), Mr Jackie Healy-Rae, identified the extension of pub opening hours as one of his key "wishlist" items he will be bringing to negotiations with the Government. An Intoxicating Liquor Bill is due before the Dail early in the autumn, and a measure to extend pub opening hours will be omitted at the peril of the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue. The "short" Bill his Department had prepared for debate at the end of June did just that and was shelved.

While Mr O'Donoghue was in Belfast for Northern talks, amendments to the Bill were being tabled from across the House. In a Fianna Fail Parliamentary Party meeting, Mr O'Donoghue's colleague, the Laois Offaly TD (and publican), Mr John Moloney, was arguing that the Bill as it stood would not survive a Dail debate.

Meanwhile, the Vintners Federation of Ireland, the representative body of publicans outside Dublin, was holding an e.g.m. Afterwards, publicans marched to Leinster House wielding more than pint glasses. The Bill was shelved. As the second most powerful lobby in the State - after the farmers - the rural publican makes up a constituency not to be toyed with. Mr Ray Olahan, licensee of the Railway Bar in Kells, Co Meath, and a member of the national executive of the VFI, speaks plainly of the publicans' influence.

"There are 6,000 rural publicans, with an average of about 70 to 100 customers. That's a serious influence on public opinion."

Further, many clinics of TDs and councillors are held in pubs. "They like to see themselves as ordinary members of the drinking public," says Mr Olahan.

The VFI and the Licensed Vintners' Association, the body representing Dublin publicans, agree that the Dublin drinker and his non-Dublin counterpart make different demands, and that the Dublin and non-Dublin publican have different needs. The LVA has remained aloof from the VFI's current battle with the Minister, only seeking an extension of opening hours to 12.30 a.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Mr Frank Fell, the LVA chief executive, has no doubt there would be custom for the extra hour early in the week but says it would be limited. Dublin's pubs are, in the main, not family-run. He says paying staff to work late early in the week would not be economically viable.

He says the demand for later opening hours is coming from the 18-to-35 age group who "generally do not want to drink late at night early in the week. They want a fresh start in the mornings".

Mr Tadg O'Sullivan, chief executive of the VFI, says his members are being crippled by the fact that they must stop serving at 11 p.m. in winter and 11.30 p.m. in summer, while hotels and clubs can serve until 2 a.m. or later.

Drinking habits in rural areas have changed over the past decade, argues Mr Moloney, the Co Laois TD. The Gaelic Bar he runs in Mountmellick also functions as an undertaker. "People used to come back in the afternoon and take a drink. People don't do that any more. They only drink in the evenings now, and they are going out later."

The traditional factor of late farm work adds to findings in VFI surveys that most of its members' customers drink from 9 p.m. on. Earlier than that, says Mr Olahan, and country pubs are quiet.

"And it breaks your heart to have to turf them out just to see them go up the road to a hotel or club, where many of the older drinkers don't want to go anyway. It's not fair on them or us."

In Kells, he says, with its population of about 3,000, there are 18 pubs, a hotel, and three clubs. It's a picture repeated throughout the State.

In Co Monaghan, for example, there are 139 customers per pub, while in Blanchardstown there are 13,000. It is because of this, and the fact that Dublin publicans charge an average of 6 per cent more for a pint of stout than their country cousins, that some 14.7 per cent of Dublin pubs have an annual turnover of over £1 million compared with 0.5 per cent elsewhere. Many are finding survival difficult.

The rural pub, which plays a unique role in the delicate social fabric which stretches beyond the Pale, must not be allowed to die, says Mr O'Sullivan.

"For generations it has been the only social outlet in small towns. The Irish have grown up to the pub as the French have grown up to wine-drinking and the Italians to sitting, chatting in cafes."

At the same time, tourism and higher standards demand that publicans upgrade their premises. Says Mr Moloney: "While they might not want to work later for the sake of the extra hour's work, families running pubs need the extra hour's trade to survive."

He says many will serve a bit later than is strictly permitted. Back in Fulham's pub, the needs of some are simpler.

Mr John Gotty (22) is playing pool and wondering if he can put together the £15 necessary to pay for a bus to Drogheda and then get into the night club at the Europa Hotel. "We don't want to go home yet but what do you do if you don't have the spare £15? The 11.30 p.m. closing? It's a joke."