An improvement in public order in the Co Clare resort, Lahinch, has prompted gardaí to stop objecting to late-night exemptions for nightclubs. Gordon Deegan has this report.
Supt Seán Corcoran confirmed yesterday that gardaí had not objected to recent applications for exemptions "as there has been a definite improvement in the way the nightclub operators are running their businesses".
Supt Corcoran said that since a special sitting of Ennis Circuit Court in July dealing with the issue, "no major public order incident has taken place in Lahinch".
At the time, Supt Corcoran opposed exemptions being granted, describing Lahinch as a "battlefield" on Saturday nights due to the numbers of young people drunk and fighting.
Lahinch has a winter population of 450 which goes up to 5,000 during peak summer weekends. Supt Corcoran told the courts then that at weekends, young people were being bused into the village, they were going into the nightclubs drunk and coming out more drunk.
At a six-hour hearing at the Circuit Court in July, Judge Carroll Moran overruled strenuous Garda objections to grant late-night licences to the nightclubs on the condition that operators would not serve "fat-frog" drinks, which combine several "alco-pops" mixed in a pint glass for about €15, and that gardaí would have access to the nightclubs anytime and to their videotapes.