THE Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI) has claimed that many Fine Gael TDs are opposed to equal status legislation which would end publicans right to refuse service to a customer without an explanation.
The legislation is currently being drawn up by the Minister for Equality and Law Reform, Mr Taylor.
A spokesman for Mr Taylor said yesterday that the Minister had received a considerable number of representations from all political parties about the proposed legislation, but none had expressed strong objections to the principle of equal status.
The VFI said that Mr Taylor's attempts to reassure the licensed trade that the legislation would not affect the running of their businesses was "meaningless".
Mr Taylor has told TDs and senators that the proposed Bill will not oblige a publican to give a reason for refusal of service to a customer "at the time".
But, says the VFI, this is the kernel of the problem, since a publican will be forced to give a reason, at a later stage, in court.
Already, according to the VFI, publicans are being threatened by people who say they will not be able to bar them once the new law is enacted.
The VFI says that the proposed law will encourage widespread litigation. "The fact that a person will have been refused service because he or she was causing trouble will become totally irrelevant. The person will claim that he was discriminated against and refused service because he is a member of one of the minority groups which the law seeks to, protect."
If a known troublemaker or drug pusher is refused service, the VFI says, the person can claim that he or she was discriminated against because of being either gay, handicapped, a member of the travelling community "or indeed of some foreign nationality".
Clearly, the VFI goes on, the English soccer fans who ran amok in Lansdowne Road last year would not be welcomed in pubs in Dublin again. "But they would not be welcomed because of their behaviour, not because of their nationality", it added.
Mr Taylor has invited the VFI and the Vintners' Association to submit proposals which would meet their concerns without undermining the intent of the legislation.
The VFI says that it supports the broad thrust of the Minister's equal status legislation, but maintains that the specific intention to outlaw the right of refusal of service would strike at the heart of how a publican must run a business.