Garda chief says street drinking ban is not enforceable

An outright ban on consumption of alcohol in public spaces in the city is “unenforceable”, according to Galway’s top cop.

Chief Superintendent Tom Curley has backed new bye-laws that will ban street drinking, but will allow exemptions for special occasions such as Race Week.

The top cop said that totally banning alcohol from the streets would also do serious damage to Galway’s tourism industry – he said he isn’t a “killjoy” and doesn’t agree with the “unworkable” blanket ban.

He said he would need 10,000 Gardaí to police the streets during Galway Race Week if a clause in the proposed bye-laws was deleted and a blanket ban was imposed.

Chief Supt Curley said it was “farcical” and “unenforceable” to implement an outright ban on alcohol 365 days a year in the city.

The vast majority of the 40,000 and 50,000 people who were on the streets drinking during Race Week were law-abiding. “Around 99.9% of them are not intoxicated . . . I’m not going to be a killjoy in all of that,” he said.

Chief Supt Curley said just because he supported the bye-laws as they were drawn up by Councillor Peter Keane, it didn’t mean there would be a ‘free for all’ on street drinking during the Races or other exempted events.

He said his members would continue to use the Public Order Act to apprehend people who were intoxicated and they would continue to police underage drinking.

Chief Supt Curley pointed out that there were more arrests made for public order last weekend in Galway than there were for the whole of Race Week. Over the seven days of Race Week there were six public order arrests – four in Cross Street and two in Quay Street. He doesn’t envisage events such as ‘Donegal Tuesday’ getting an exemption for street drinking.

For more on this story, see this week’s Galway City Tribune