21/11/2025
Minister Gordon Lyons MLA ’s decision to reject the core reforms recommended in the Independent Licensing Review is a major setback for nightlife and culture in Northern Ireland.
The Review, which cost £478,000 in public money, proposed changes to licensing that would have removed barriers for community groups, promoters, and cultural organisers by opening up the occasional licensing system and introducing a new cultural licence category.
The surrender principle — widely recognised as the central driver of the licensing system’s failures — also remains effectively untouched.
As a result, organisers and creatives are left exactly where they were before: locked out of a system the Review concluded is not fit for purpose. By sidelining independent, peer-reviewed research and seemingly siding with business lobbying groups, the Minister has ignored the voices of everyone else who participated in the Review.
Given the Minister’s refusal to act, Free The Night will now begin raising these issues with the Competition and Markets Authority and other regulators.
Free The Night will continue working with communities, councils, academic experts and elected representatives to deliver the reforms the public paid for and the Review clearly called for.
If the Department will not act, we will.
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