Tánaiste warns selling takeaway pints with lids is 'not on'

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has criticised the sale of takeaway pints. File Photo: Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie

While the sale of takeaway alcohol is not illegal, the Tánaiste has said the practice of selling pints with a lid is 'not on'.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said yesterday that people can "forget about takeaway pints", though the Government later clarified that it would not ban the practice outright.

Speaking to Newstalk, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said "nobody wants to ban" the practice of selling alcohol on takeaway basis. He said he had fears that the sale of pints in plastic containers from pubs could lead to crowds congregating, but conceded there was little evidence of this taking place over Christmas.

"There wasn't the problem that we thought it might be," he said.

"A few weeks ago it was a problem, and we're working on new public health regulations that strengthen the law with regard around drinking alcohol in public streets and that will give the Gardaí more powers of enforcement."

Mr Varadkar said nobody wants to ban the sale of takeaway beer or wine with takeaways.

"But it seems that the pubs can kind of get around this by serving a pint and putting a lid on it. And that's not on," he said, criticising scenes that had emerged in the likes of Cork and Dublin in November and December. 

"We don't want to shut down the off licenses or shut down the pubs. And so you can sell, you know bottles of beer and sell cans for people to take home. 

But they seem to be kind of getting around the law by giving you a traditional kind of pint and then putting a lid on it.

On the Leaving Cert, Mr Varadkar said teachers had done "phenomenal" work in getting schools open and that the Government was committed to having the Leaving Cert go ahead. He said that he "regrets" that his government completely shut schools during the first lockdown in March 2020. 

Mr Varadkar said that the childcare bubble idea, which allows essential workers form bubbles with one other household for the purpose of childcare, was "not vague". 

He said that the idea opened up options for essential workers. The Tánaiste said that the list of essential workers was "not an exact science".

He added that the "overriding ambition here is the reduction of the transmission of the virus" and that hospitalisation figures could hit 1,500 in the coming weeks.

Mr Varadkar claimed that the Government was not "taken by surprise" by vaccinations. He said that like other EU countries, Ireland had had a slow start, but that we would "catch up". 

He said that there would be more than enough vaccines this year to vaccinate the entire adult population of Ireland but warned that the first few months would be slow, adding that March or April was a realistic timeframe for mass vaccination centres to be established.