Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The rationale is all the work done in the Department of Health on the abuse of alcohol and the measures that should be taken to reduce that abuse, particularly by young people. One of the major focal points is slabs of beer. A can may cost 40 cent, for example. People can purchase alcohol at a very low cost in supermarkets because of the nature of the supermarket trade. Some of the products are even loss leaders and attract young people. In the absence of a coherent policy to deal with this, I imposed the excise duty on wine disproportionately. That is part of what is occurring. It is not just kids who are buying beer; there are people with alcohol problems and they put a bottle or bottles of wine into the shopping basket every time they shop. Alcohol abuse occurs at home, for one reason or another. People are under various pressures in society.

Let us consider the best hope to meet the arguments made by the Department of Health on this matter. The Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Alex White, is very strong on this issue and building on the policy developed by the former Minister of State, Deputy Shortall.

If the proposed solution in Scotland is not knocked in the courts, that would be the route to go down because it could help if it were possible to bring in minimum pricing orders. The argument then would be where to pitch it.