If you want an indication of the turgid and witless dirigisme of public life, the recent Oireachtas report on liquor licensing is your only man, though it will certainly depress you, possibly as much as do our absurd laws controlling the sale of drink in supermarkets. These now ban the single-queue system for those who want to buy alcohol and other items. Five years ago, you could pay for your beer and wines in large supermarkets at the main check-out; now, by law, you cannot.
The reason? Because of the conflict between the popular demand for Sunday trading and the laws which prohibit the sale of alcohol between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. on the sabbath. When supermarkets did not open on Sunday, the licence by which they sold alcohol applied to the whole premises. But licensed premises may not sell anything between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., including cheese or rashers or eggs. To sell such comestibles on a Sunday, one must do so from unlicensed premises; accordingly, a supermarket licence must apply to a particular corner of a supermarket, which must be closed on a Sunday afternoon.
State arrogance
One question: why? Why should the State get it into its witlessly arrogant head to say I should be able to buy a bottle of wine at 1.55 but not at 2.05? The language the report uses in part tells you why. After recommending that supermarkets be allowed to trade on Sunday afternoons (but with the booze safely locked away), it continues: "Opposition [within the committee] to our recommendation was founded in the belief that, while there is no public demand for the availability of liquor during the hours in question. . .the very possibility of its (illegal) availability would create an opportunity for liquor consumption at times far outside the accepted norm."
Dear God in Heaven: and that is what our elected representatives think they are in Dail Eireann for? To create laws around what is perceived to be the "accepted norm" and criminalise behaviour outside those norms? And what other "accepted norms" have these bright lads got in mind? How many Mars bars we might eat according to accepted norms? How often we should have sex? How often we go for walks in the countryside? How often we have to listen to the nannyish blathering of fools?
Too often. The committee recommends that the ban on Good Friday, Christmas Day pub-opening and the restrictions on St Patrick's Day (which is treated like a Sunday) be continued, because, in part, "there is no significant groundswell of public opinion in favour of [change]".
Good Friday
Really? Two questions. Who have these characters been talking to?
Good Friday is the most reviled day in the entire calendar, when more liver damage is done at grimly alcoholic parties than at Christmas and the New year combined, and this is simply and solely because of the closure of pubs. Second question: what does it matter whether or not there is a groundswell of opinion? Are we back to the "accepted norms" principle of moral-law making?
It looks like it. Why should all pubs be closed on Good Friday? What if a minority of pubowners and drinkers want their own pubs to be open? Why should hotels not be allowed to serve wine to their guests at dinner? Why should people not meet if they want for drinks in a pub on Christmas Day? Why should. . .
But enough of this. Listen to these words about Good Friday which convey so much: "It was further suggested that we could bring trouble on ourselves by violating the religious significance of the day." And of course bringing trouble on themselves is the thing which these pioneers of personal freedom would go to any lengths to avoid.
So it is barely relevant that these law-makers would not "violate" the religious significance of the day if they changed the law: they would merely be permitting others to do so. Yet they cannot even begin to grasp this simple principle of personal freedom. It was a previous generation of lawmakers' comparable (and comparably contemptible) fear of bringing trouble on themselves which caused decades of equivocation and mealy-mouthed cowardice over the decriminalisation of condoms.
Vested interest
Cowardice is not the only factor in Irish law-making; there is also the vested interest, which was most powerfully evident in the quite disgraceful 1988 Act which permitted restaurants to have full licences, but on financially punitive conditions which, of course, did not apply to pubs which served food. Thus was the powerful vinters' lobby kept happy. A provision compelling supermarkets to have over-the-counter sales only became law, but was not signed by the Minister.
It remains on the statute book. The Dail committee supplies final proof of its ridiculousness by recommending that this preposterous measure remain in place, lest supermarkets get into the habit of selling to the under-age. My own experience is that it is off-licences which sell to the underage, not supermarkets; yet here we have a perfect insight into what law-makers think the law is for: not a legal instrument to be considered by the courts, but a putative weapon to be held in reserve, Just In Case.
Truly, if you want to see why real power is shifting from equivocating politicians to a voraciously assertive judiciary, the Oireachtas Review of Liquor Licensing provides all the depressing evidence you could possibly need.