People without licenses should reduce opening hours and limit the sale of drinks in a bid to stop house parties, says the minister

The government should limit the amount of alcohol it can buy and reduce off-license hours, a Fine Gael minister has said.

State Minister Patrick O’Donovan asked the government to examine opening hours and the amount of alcohol that can be purchased at any one time.

He said, “When you see slabs of cans being brought home, you know they are not taking them home for an after-dinner snack.

“We are asking people to exercise common sense here.

“We can’t pretend that house parties don’t take place when they clearly are.”

The Limerick TD said health experts made it clear that uncontrolled alcohol use has directly affected the spread of Covid-19 and is “a big part of the problem.”

O’Donovan was speaking when Level 3 restrictions across the country went into effect at midnight.

He said: “You see people with nothing but alcohol in their shopping carts.

“In recent weeks a culture has developed that this is okay. Not well “.

O’Donovan said he was expressing “a personal opinion,” but voiced his fears about an increase in house parties over the next three weeks.

He said: “I don’t think it’s behind the justification of justice to ask people not to have house parties.

“I’m not suggesting that we close the licenses, but I certainly think that as part of the Living with Covid program, we need to examine maybe the opening hours, maybe the volume that people can buy at any given time …”

When asked if this would include supermarket licenses, the junior minister said his suggestions would be “general.”

O’Donovan told RTE’s Claire Byrne that her brother is a tavern keeper and, like many pubs and hotels, they have followed the guidelines to the letter and “have not been responsible for the spread of the virus.”

He said: “I don’t mean the person who walks into a Centra and takes home a bottle of wine at night, I’m not talking about that at all.

“What I’m talking about is places where they obviously take home slabs of cans and numerous bottles, you know they don’t take home for an after-dinner snack, you know they take home for a party.”

The National Off Licensing Association has warned against any changes to the opening hours of the small family businesses it represents.

Instead, they have called for the initiation of a minimum unit price, to restrict the sale of cheap alcohol.