McDowell: New restaurant plan more radical than café bars

Justice Minister Michael McDowell has confirmed that he has scrapped proposals to introduce café bar pub licences in favour of reform of the restaurant licensing regime.

Mr McDowell was planning to introduce new pub licences for small, continental-style premises that would serve food alongside alcohol.

However, he has been forced to drop the plan due to opposition from Fianna Fáil backbenchers.

Publicans and health professionals had also criticised the proposals, saying any increase in drink licences would lead to increased alcohol consumption.

Despite abandoning the move, Mr McDowell said his new plan to grant alcohol licences to all sit-down restaurants represented a more radical deregulation of the sector than his café bar proposal.