The Christian festival of Easter will be gone under Stormont reforms of the licencing laws, church leaders have warned.
Presbyterian and Methodist leaders also warned of a tsunami of addiction issues in the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis.
And they have urged MLAs to include legal protections for staff who do not want to have to work at Easter.
Methodist minister David Clements warned of a tsunami of harm coming from alcohol abuse. We do not know what the outcome will be in a year s time, post-Covid. Although much less alcohol has been consumed in restaurants, pubs and so on, my gut feeling is that the amount of alcohol consumed in homes has increased significantly. Who is to tell what health impact that will have in a year s time or five years time? he asked.