I refer to the debate yesterday on the Intoxicating Liquor (Amendment) Bill 2017 which proposes to open pubs on Good Friday. It was stated that this was a generally popular change and that the tourism industry would be gravely damaged if this did not happen. After the debate, I went through Trinity College and spoke to two large groups of tourists, one from the Netherlands and the other from the United States of America. They laughed like drains, saying the pub opening times would not affect them. There was no research produced or evidence to back up the bland statements in mid air by populists. They are not popular.

The Senator spoke to two large groups of tourists. Did they ask the Senator about it or did he address them?

The Senator just bumped into two temperance groups.

I have a very considerable volume of emails, all supporting the idea of closing the pubs on Good Friday. I was on "Pat Kenny" this morning. He rang me up and asked if I would do an interview.

Did Senator Norris say "No"?

The response to that was overwhelmingly in favour of keeping pubs closed on Good Friday. There is no research to show that this was a popular thing, it was just a fantasy.

One of the issues that came in, which was very significant, is off-licence sales. I got a very detailed note about below cost selling of alcohol by the supermarkets. This is an absolute plague.

They are dropping the price of vodka, whiskey and all the rest of it, let alone the slabs of beer, to a very considerable extent.

We support Senator Norris in full on that.

That is where there is a need to attack. There is a need to stop the supermarkets peddling alcohol to young people at below cost.

Hear, hear.

Forget about Good Friday. God knows, we have plenty of problems with drink in this country and the last thing we need is another day of booze. As far as people stocking up goes, it is not just on Good Friday but on every day of the week because of the price of alcohol.

I thank the Senator for that rendition. He will have ample time on Committee and Report Stages to speak and I understand there is also a Public Health (Alcohol) Bill on the Order Paper which might be resurrected at some time.

We talk about no pubs being open on Good Friday. One of the big issues in Ireland at the moment is social media and I wonder if we could have a "No mobile phones" day. It would be interesting to see how we could function for an entire day without a mobile phone.