Department of Justice, considering licensing laws to improve Ireland’s night time culture

The Government are considering Ireland’s licensing laws to improve our suffering night life culture.

Give Us The Night continues to achieve success as they join an official Dublin City Council arts strategic policy committee (SPC) that recently met with Dublin City Council representatives and the Department of Justice.

Meeting for the second time yesterday, considerable ground was made as the Minister of Justice agreed to consider licensing laws to improve night life culture at the start of 2020.

A “consultation process” will take place in the first quarter of 2020 with an aim to foster and improve night time culture in Ireland.

Sunil Sharpe of Give Us The Night campaign stated that they wanted to recieve “fair conditions” for night-time venues while the problem was effecting much more than just pubs and nightclubs.

Sunil went on to say, “This is about opening our main urban centres later, that will move us in line with other European countries,” an example that has helped Give Us The Night show positive examples of their goals throughout their campaign.

“Why don’t theatres or galleries open later, or coffee shops, restaurants or even markets?

“Why is there not a business model for them to open, considering gyms open 24 hours and bus routes are now beginning to operate 24 hours. Despite having record levels of tourism, we’re ejecting people out of our towns and cities at artificially early times.

“We propose the reintroduction of the theatre licence for late-night cultural and music events, or a variation of this licence to be called a culture licence or a night-venue licence.”

The director of Central Arts in Co Waterford, Ciara O Connell, went on to say how it is a “commonly held belief that Dublin nightlife culture is dying”.

“While this may be true, know that it is happening all over Ireland, and we have been feeling it for a long time,” she said.

“The legislation that dictates our night-time economy is outdated. It needs to be re-examined and overhauled and with allowance for venues outside the mainstream licensing system.”

A welcomed approach that showcases the important work done by Give Us The Night as they continue to fight for our night time culture.

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Along with our comrades from Galway and Waterford, we had a very productive meeting with the Joint Committee on Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht today. The second session with reps from Dublin City Council and the justice department was also very interesting, and has opened up new communication lines for us, with tentative plans to finally have the talks we need to have with the justice department. In general there was broad agreement for change, which we take as a positive. Step by step and all that, still some way to go, but today was a very good day (and indeed historic day) for our campaign 👍 #giveusthenight

A post shared by Give Us The Night (@giveusthenight) on Nov 13, 2019 at 12:24pm PST