Letters to the Editor: Give our pubs a chance to survive

'The pub creates an outlet for people to chat, socialise more, and reduce loneliness, which is very big in Ireland at the moment'

Sat, 15 Feb, 2025 - 01:00

Last week it was announced the price of a draught pint was going up again in the pubs, piling more pressure on a struggling trade.

At the same time, a major discount store is selling 15 x 500ml draught cans for €24.88. That amounts to 13.2 pints, meaning a pint at home costs costs €1.88 compared to €6-€7 in a pub. The 23% Vat alone on a €7 pint is €1.31. That’s before all the new increases.

To encourage people back into pubs and to enjoy social life, the draught beers/stouts should have Vat on 13.5%. The breweries and pubs should also be encouraged to reduce their prices or margins to match this discount. Reducing the Vat to 13.5% brings a €7 pint down to €6.45, or a €6 pint to €5.53.

When it comes to cans, off licence sales result in a lot less Vat (tax) than when sold in pubs. Using the example above, 13.2 pints (15 cans) at €7 per pint costs €92.40 in a pub, creating €16.88 of Vat, as distinct from €4.66 Vat through a 15-can pack.

Drinking at home encourages binge drinking. It’s sad to see young people buying slabs of cans and bottles of spirits in off licences instead of being able to afford to go for a pint, socialise, and meet friends and new people.

Drinking in a pub is a planned event. There was a time you would visit a pub a good number of times and not drink in between these visits. The pub creates an outlet for people to chat, socialise more, and reduce loneliness, which is very big in Ireland at the moment.

Pubs having music, dance, pool, darts, cards, and events make them more than about drink, but rather real craic and meeting people. It creates more employment as well, directly and indirectly. Irish pubs are also a huge tourist attraction — that’s if we keep them open.

When I first worked in a pub in 1977 in Knock, Co Mayo, a pint was about 55c (40p). The budget was always watched with interest to see what it was raised by, eg 2p-5p. There were at least six pubs and three hotels in Knock, where there is only one pub now.

Pubs were a cash cow for the Government. While the Government is not as dependent on them as much today for tax, all the breweries do now is to increase their prices, especially in pubs, and it has the same effect. The Government just collects the extra Vat.

A publican has to be of good standing, and to get a drink licence you have to get garda, fire office, tax office, and court rulings, and manage it properly. Customers and young people are safe there. House parties have no control on the amount of drink and are potential drugs free-for-alls.

Give pubs a chance to survive and thrive in communities all across Ireland and reduce Vat on draught to 13.5%.

John Healy, Bohermore, Galway

Special education crisis is no surprise

Regarding the news that a government agency is to fund research into the rise in demand for special education, I am astounded that they need to research this problem.

I am the programme director for PALS Preschool. We are a charity that provides early intervention services for autistic children (aged three to five) and are (barely) funded through the Department of Education Home Tuition group scheme.

For years, parents have had to pay for private assessments in order to get a diagnosis for their children due to the HSE backlog. These assessments were not initially recorded through the HSE or NCSE, so these children were not on the radar. There was no forward thinking about how to plan for these children’s educational needs, and now it has hit crisis point.

Perhaps the money would be better spent on training teachers and opening classrooms. It is not acceptable for children to be without school places or being assigned school places in classrooms that haven’t yet been built.

As our waiting list is currently at more than 200 children (yes, 200). I can only imagine what the next few years will hold for our students and their families.

Heidi Penrose, Hampton Wood, Finglas

Alarmist scenarios are promoting militarism

Colonel Dorcha Lee (retd), in his Irish Examiner opinion piece, applauds Sweden and Finland for having ceased to be neutral as a Russia–Nato war is “looming on the horizon”, he says (‘The Irish public are blissfully unaware that the Third World War has already begun’, February 11).

Meanwhile, says Colonel Lee, an “undefended” Ireland “will be ripe for invasion and occupation” as “the planet loses its ability to sustain life forms”.

The common people of Ireland, according to Colonel Lee, are “blissfully unaware that the Third World War has already begun, however low-keyed”, and naively imagine that neutrality will prevent us from being “sucked into the vortex of war”.

The political analyst Perry Anderson identified this discourse as a “catechism of security” — that is, distortions of ideology and exaggerated threats. A growing number of politicians, academics, pundits, and sections of the media now routinely promote alarmist scenarios of vulnerability to attack, and insist that “our values” are at stake — a narrative intended to drum up public support for militarism and the spending that goes with it.

The ultimate aim of this discourse in Ireland is to persuade the public that neutrality should be ditched and that we should join Nato.

If we take that path, it’s far more likely that we will be sucked into the vortex of war.

Dominic Carroll, Ardfield, Co Cork

If you want neutrality, you must arm yourself

As of now, there are only four countries in the world that are neutral: Austria, Switzerland, Costa Rica, and Ireland.

Our historic neutrality stemmed from a reluctance to be ever militarily helpful to a former oppressor. It slowly gained a national political belief that neutrality really meant you don’t need a defence force other than for ceremonial duties and some aid to the civil power.

The consequences are we haven’t a combatant capability at sea or in the air and at the same time are potential guardians of an intense matrix of seabed cables, interconnectors, and land-borne data centres.

To maintain a neutral stance, you need to build a deterrence strategy by creating an all-arms defence capability. Basically, if you want neutrality, you must arm sufficiently to deter others from nibbling at your assets.

John Jordan, Rtd Commander Irish Navy, Cloyne, Co Cork

No man is an island — we should be in Nato

As a former soldier in Ireland, I know we are militarily very weak. I have written several times to the minister for defence and An Taoiseach about our precarious position and how we should not be the weakest link in Europe.

We should be part of Nato, as neutrality did not save Holland or Belgium. Switzerland has a people’s army. The whole population is trained and armed. We have nothing.

We are too dependent on Britain, and now America is giving up on Europe. I received no adequate response from the governing authorities except the position of neutrality.

It’s not being taken seriously. I feel like Churchill calling from the wilderness. Ireland! No man is an island. We are living on the edge of very dangerous times, and nothing is being done about it.

James Arnold, Letterkenny, Co Donegal

Those who covered up Jesuit abuse should be held criminally responsible

Your report, ‘Jesuits name 15 deceased members accused of child abuse’ (February 13), mentions that many of these men were moved to new roles in their lifetimes, even though they had admitted abusing children.

Worse still, the report mentions that their new superiors were not informed why they were being moved under their jurisdiction.

It would be important to know who these Jesuit provincials were who were responsible for moving these paedophile priests around to escape justice, and whether any internal disciplinary action was ever taken by the Jesuit Order against these provincials who collaborated in the perpetuation of these horrific crimes.

These provincials knew the nature and extent of the sexual abuse being carried out by priests in their pastoral care. They not only closed their eyes to the horrific damage being caused to the lives of young vulnerable students entrusted to their care by these paedophile priests, but by moving them to alternative safe locations where they could continue their wanton destruction of young lives, these superiors should be held as criminally responsible for the crimes committed by their paedophile subjects.

Brendan Butler, Drumcondra, D9

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Letters to the Editor: Urgent need to build up our Defence Forces