Blog — Northern Ireland

One of the most important changes to licensing in Northern Ireland for over a century happened in 2021, when we successfully got an Amendment passed (proposed by Matthew O’Toole from the SDLP) which committed the Department for Communities to conduct an independent review into the archaic, anti-competitive, cartel supporting NI licensing laws.  Who knew beer could bring people together so well? Of the 5 Executive parties, the SDLP, DUP, UUP and Alliance all supported the amendment, with only Sinn Féin voting against. One of the difficulties we faced during our lobbying campaign were the policy advisors at the Department for...