Thorough debate necessary

Extending the opening hours of public houses in an effort to curtail the incidence of public order offences would appear, on the face of it, to be self-defeating.

At the moment, the idea from Minister for Justice Michael McDowell to allow local authorities control the closing times in their administrative area up to any time between 11pm and 2am is for discussion only.

It warrants a considerable amount of discussion and the opinions of those organisations who would be against it must be properly heard.