Ireland must “drown the shamrock” with water rather than alcohol this St Patrick’s Day, according to Minister of State Patrick O’Donovan.
Mr O’Donovan said there was a “massive failure” to control the sale of alcohol before Christmas, leading to a “very dear price”.
He called for curbs on the sale of alcohol, which he said had led to some “scandalous scenes” during the pandemic in Ireland.
“I hope that I'm not on your show next week saying look at what happened on St Patrick's Day,” he told RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show.
“It's unbelievable what some people have done to the rest of the community over the last 12 months in the name of enjoying themselves,” he added.
“More and more people are getting the message that clowning around has done an awful lot of damage, unfortunately what we saw in the run up to Christmas — it was the gatherings around funerals that did a huge amount of damage.
“Then we had the sheebeens — guards had to go out, endangering themselves and their families, to deal with these yahoos.”
'Let it go'
Mr O’Donovan said St Patrick’s Day this year was a day for the garden, to work outside the house and to “steer away” from alcohol. “It’s not a day to see the virus creep into houses and take off,” he warned.
The Minister said he was just trying to impress on people “we can see the finishing line up ahead.”
“I'm just asking people to stick with it, it's really hard, we all know that but tomorrow is a day — just let it pass, just let it go,” he said.
People could go for a walk with one other household. They should not have a picnic, not be meeting up “to have a puck around in the park where it’s going to turn into a social event. Not kids playing around while parents sit on bench having a latté.”
Any self-respecting licence holder that is going to stand inside a table tomorrow and hand out pints would want their head examined
There was a “need to try to keep a lid on it”, he said. “We didn't deal with the sale of alcohol before Christmas, we paid a very dear price for it.”
Mr O’Donovan said that any licence holder who would sell “pints and cocktails” during protests “would want to have their head examined.”
“Any self-respecting licence holder that is going to stand inside a table tomorrow and hand out pints would want their head examined. You don't need a licence to have a bit of cop on,” he said.
He warned that when it came for licences to be renewed, gardaí could object and “tell the judge this fella sold pints and cocktails in the middle of a protest.”
