One of Cork city’s best-known “early houses”, a pub licensed to sell alcohol from 7am, has had to hire extra security to cope with an influx of college students celebrating on the fringes of college social events.

The head of the city’s branch of the Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI), Michael O’Donovan, described it as a “new phenomenon”. He called on the government to introduce “sooner rather than later” the Public Health (Alcohol) Bill which includes provisions for minimum unit pricing to end the sale of cheap booze, particularly from supermarkets.

The issue was raised at the city’s joint policing committee (JPC). Cllr Mary Shields (FF) expressed shock that students had packed into one of the city’s early-morning houses early last Wednesday during UCC’s Refreshers Week, with queues of students outside.

“The early-morning licence was never designed for students. It was never envisaged that there would be taxi loads of students flocking in,” she said.

It prompted calls from her ward colleague, Cllr John Buttimer (FG), for the establishment of a multi-disciplinary taskforce to tackle the “scourge” of alcohol-fuelled mass student gatherings, particularly in the city’s university residential precincts, linked to annual college events such as Freshers’ Week, Rag Week and the so-called Christmas Day celebration in November.

We really need to address this — the same problems come up every year. We need to get a grip on it,” he said.

Mr O’Donovan, the recently-elected chairman of the Cork branch of the VFI, told the JPC proprietors of the early houses have done what they can to manage the arrival of hordes of students. But he said the availability of cheap booze from supermarkets must be addressed.

“Early houses were there historically to serve people working in the docks or people that were on night shift, or people on shift work generally,” he said.

“I know the particular bar mentioned has put on extra security in the morning — other than that there’s not a whole lot they can do.

“It’s [the early licence] for people on shift work. It would be disheartening for them if, for one week that the students do this — to take it [the licence] away.”

Mr O’Donovan said VFI members have attended several meetings with gardaí, university management and student leaders in advance of the college social events to discuss how best to manage them. But he said the owners and operators of off-licences have never attended those meetings.

He told the JPC that there has been an explosion in off-licence sales — accounting for 20% of all alcohol sales some 25 years ago to around 52% last year.