DAVID HICKEY, the owner of popular South’s pub in the heart of Limerick city, will celebrate 50 years in the licensed trade this summer.

SIPPING a pint at Pa O’Riordan’s pub in Athlacca yesterday, Joe Mulcahy summed up the plight of rural drinkers.

A TOTAL of 21 people died in road accidents in Kerry in 2006, the highest number since 1995, when the toll was 22.

MAJOR drinks companies should start subsidising transport projects in rural areas to help drinkers get to and from their local pubs.

THE plethora of tactical measures being considered by Ireland’s publicans with the expressed aim of frustrating the Government’s impending ban on smoking in bars, illustrates the degree to which vintners are out of step with popular opinion on this vexed issue.

PUBLICANS are on collision course with the Government following Health Minister Micheál Martin’s bottom-line statement that the ban on smoking in the workplace will be applied without fear or favour to all establishments.

VINCENT KEANEY (Irish Examiner letters, June 14) wonders which publican will refuse to serve a smoker.

SHOT drinks like Vodka Slammers, Sidekicks and Bug Reds should be banned to combat binge drinking, the Vintners’ Federation said yesterday.

PUBLICANS have promised there will be no nationwide blanket ban on serving Travellers following peace talks aimed at resolving the dispute.