Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2025-05-14
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

Over the past number of years, the Government has allocated significant investment to pubs. The investment during the Covid-19 pandemic was unprecedented and enabled many rural pubs to develop good outdoor facilities and so on. That is a good thing and very positive.
I do take the Deputy's point about socialisation being good for you. Professor Luke O'Neill has written in his Sunday Independent articles about socialisation being a very important metric or factor in mental and physical well-being.
There is a multifactorial reason for closures of rural pubs. It is not all just about the excise duty. There are other factors. Society is changing. For example, when a person retires from a family-owned pub, very often the younger generation does not necessarily want to take over the pub because of the way the economy is, with full employment and so on.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-05-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:53:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-05-14