Convenience stores have started a campaign to make it easier for them to get licences to sell beer and spirits.
The Independent Liquor Licensing Reform Group, which represents about 1,000 convenience stores including Centra, Spar, Londis, Supervalu and Mace franchisees, says current licensing legislation is antiquated and stifles competition.
The group wants a separate licensing system for off-licence premises to be incorporated into a radical reform of licensing laws due later this year.
At a press conference yesterday, the ILLRG said the stores were motivated by their customers' needs, and wanted to overcome a system which was "totally outdated, unjust and discriminatory". It said customers in the stores could "buy a full range of groceries and wine, but not beer and spirits".
The option of acquiring a pub licence in order to sell beer and spirits could cost up to £200,000 and was simply uneconomic for convenience stores, according to the ILLRG.
To operate an off-licence at present, shopkeepers must purchase one or two pub licences and have these converted by the courts into a single licence.
ILLRG spokesman Mr Paddy Early, who operates a Londis supermarket in Tramore, Co Waterford, said the present liquor licensing laws were "unfair, anti-competitive and anti-customer". Customers could not understand why they could not buy beer when buying wine and general groceries in shops such as his.
The group is seeking a meeting with the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, to outline its proposals.
It has welcomed the recent findings of the Competition Authority, which concluded that the Republic's licensing laws "significantly distort competition" and recommended their liberalisation.
