2018 has been an extremely important year for Dublin pubs in relation to Government policy. Over the past 12 months, pubs and alcohol have never been far from the public policy agenda.
Thankfully a number of positive outcomes have been achieved through this period which will be of benefit to Dublin pubs for years to come.
Throughout the deliberations behind these policy issues, the Licensed Vintners Association (LVA) has been to the fore in highlighting the key areas of relevance to pubs.
Representation is a key aspect of the LVA’s activity. For more than 200 years the LVA has been campaigning tirelessly to ensure that the decision makers are aware and understand the issues that matter to the Dublin licensed trade. The politicians and civil service know that if they wish to understand the Dublin publican’s perspective, then they need to talk to the LVA.
This was no different in 2018, with the LVA meeting with politicians from all sides of the Oireachtas, as well as other decision makers, to help advance issues of concern to our members or to mitigate against ideas that would have a negative impact.
One of the key successes was the implementation of the Good Friday openings for Dublin pubs. This finally came to pass in 2018 after extensive effort to broaden understanding of the issue amongst the political and other stakeholders over the previous years.
Another example of the LVA’s representative activity was our campaigning for the inclusion of Minimum Unit Pricing and structural separation in the recent Public Health Alcohol legislation. Minimum pricing has been an issue for publicans for quite some time so it was a positive outcome to finally have this matter addressed.
Through our extensive SupportYourLocal campaign, we played an instrumental role in preventing another excise increase in the recent Budget and we will continue to campaign strongly for excise reductions in future Budgets.
In this video, LVA Chief Executive Donall O’Keeffe gives his perspective on the representative activity undertaken in 2018, along with the challenges which lie ahead.