Leave the off-licences alone

Sir, – I listened attentively to Partrick O'Donovan's RTÉ television interview referred to in your news report ("Off-licence opening hours should be curtailed, says Minister", October 7th).

At no point did he offer any explanation as to how curtailing off-licence opening hours would stop house parties.

In addition, the threat posed to the livelihoods of those working in this sector by his proposal was never even mentioned.

It is difficult enough trying to cope with the day-to-day uncertainties that Covid-19 has created without having to listen to half-baked ideas wafting across the airwaves from a person who holds a ministerial post in a Government that is supposed to be charting a way through the chaos.

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Mr O’Donovan needs to control this dictatorial tendency and stop looking around for scapegoats for the failure of Government to get a grip on the pandemic.

And in the interests of the nation’s sanity, the employment of a “vaudeville hook” out in Montrose would not go amiss either. – Yours, etc,

JIM O’SULLIVAN,

Rathedmond,

Sligo.

Sir, – Now when we have no outside entertainment permitted, the Government wants to control how much wine we may place in our supermarket trolleys. To increase the amount of times we have to return to the supermarket?

This is absurd, and a sure way to increase the spread of Covid. – Yours, etc,

DAVID

MONAGAN,

Cork.