DUBLIN nightlife campaigners are pushing for promised laws to be prioritised by Government.
The Sale of Alcohol Bill was first announced in October 2022.
The changes to licensing would see pubs able to stay open until 12.30am and nightclubs would stay open until 6am.
Late licenses would allow a pub to open until 2.30am and last orders at nightclubs would be 5am.
However, these changes have yet to be enforced.
Give Us The Night, a group attempting to modernise Ireland’s nightlife, are calling for the laws to come into play stating “we want what’s being promised”.
Spokesperson for the campaigning group Sunil Sharpe said the small change will make a “very big difference”.
He explained to RTE: “At the moment, any venue that uses a special exemption order, which includes nightclubs, can open until 2.30am and patrons need to be out of the venue by 3am.
“We just want some flexibility with the closing times at this point.
“But crucially, we want what’s being promised. There’s a draft piece of legislation that’s there.
“There is a commitment in the new Programme for Government to publish and to enact this legislation.
He continued: “So, for us now, it’s about the timeline. When is it going to be done? And this will take a proactive action from the new Justice Minister.
“At the moment, we have the earliest closing times in Europe. But even after we change that, we’ll still be the earliest. Really, what we’re looking here for is a moderate change.
“It’s a very small change, but it will make a very big difference to the venues involved.”
Currently in Ireland there are 83 regularly active nightclubs, down from 110 in 2019.
Dublin has the highest number of nightclubs with 23, while Limerick follows with eight.
And even other big cities such as Cork and Galway have much smaller numbers.
There are five nightclubs in Cork and four in Galway.
Kilkenny has no nightclubs active according to figures released by Give Us The Night at the start of the year.
MINISTER’S COMMITMENT
Former Justice Minister Helen McEntee said in November 2024 that “no time had been set” for when new laws would kick in.
She added: “I am absolutely committed to ensuring that we revise and that we update our night time economy legislation to make it easier for people to operate, but also that we have that night time offering.
“I sincerely believe that the more people we have in our city centres at night, the more types of offerings we have, the more dynamic our city becomes.
“We will publish legislation early on in any new government.”
The Give Us The Night Group are calling for new Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan to push changes forward.
