[ILUG-Social] pubs open on sunday ?

[Niall Walsh]

Well I'm not religious either (surprise surprise) and while I can 
understand your
argument regarding the garda, that is entirely unacceptable 
constitutionally (imho).

Basically either church and state are seperate or they are not and our 
constitution
says they are I believe.   Now as they are seperate and the garda are 
part of the state,
then the garda must (as a force) not be religiously biased so they have 
to be able to
put feet on the street 365x24x7.   If we were such a catholic state than 
surely no-one
would want to go to the pub on Good Friday and hence the pubs wouldn't 
open so we
wouldn't need the normal garda level.   Why the laws?

Niall

p.s. If only I had the money to try and take this to court :-)



kevin lyda wrote:

>On Thu, Mar 28, 2002 at 02:38:13PM +0000, Niall Walsh wrote:
>
>>That's exactly the point!   Each pub owner in the country could refuse
>>personally to open on Good Friday, they are under no obligation to open
>>any day of the year HOWEVER they ARE under obligation NOT to open on
>>Good Friday, even if they are Muslims, Agnostics or Devil worshippers!
>>The government could not require a pub to open on Good Friday as a
>>christian publican could state that it is against his religion and he
>>would have a constitutional defense.
>>
>
>ok, i'm not religious, i do believe in separation of church and state
>(though i'm not certain the irish constitution provides for that), and in
>general i'm not keen on the opening hours of a lot of irish businesses -
>never mind pubs on two days a year.
>
>however, to be fair, there could be an argument for it that might
>have *some* merit.  a vast majority of the gardaí (sp?) are catholic.
>and open pubs require more garda.  the state could argue it is closing
>the pubs on those days because it isn't sure of its ability to fully
>staff the gardaí.
>
>oh, and most muslims don't consume alcohol.  so there's one group that's
>probably ok with irish gov't policy on pub closures.
>
>kevin
>