John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the presentations and the group's visit here this morning. However, I am pretty shocked by some of the assertions made and would like clarification on some issues. The bigger picture was mentioned and it was suggested there is an issue with pricing and availability as well as with sports sponsorship. Where does sports sponsorship rate as a priority in that regard?

Is Alcohol Action Ireland seeking that sponsorship and funding by alcohol companies of sports be banned in isolation, thereby allowing for the money spent on that to go into radio, television and print advertising of alcohol? How would the group deal with the situation where if Ireland passed legislation on this, we would still have multimedia and digital media putting advertising through to youngsters anyway?

How would the witnesses deal with that? How would they deal with the issue that was mentioned by Deputy Dooley? My experience relates primarily to a single sporting organisation - the GAA. The GAA might decide it could do without this form of sponsorship at the top level, but how would that be dealt with at local level? If a pub and restaurant that provides support to the local GAA club in a town sponsors it in the name of the restaurant, everyone will know the sponsorship relates to the pub as well. Are we talking about something that will not be possible to implement?

When Dr. Smyth mentioned the costs in this regard, he suggested that sporting organisations could do without the money. While I am not here to speak on behalf of the sporting organisations, I would like to pick up on Dr. Smyth's remark that most of the coaching is done by parents rather than highly paid coaches. As someone who has been coaching for many years, I am aware of the difficulties that can arise when parents coach their own children. There needs to be a distinction between parents who help out and those who provide coaching. I have often attended under-12 games where one would worry about the parents rather than the children. Dangers exist in that respect as well.

I would like to mention something else I have noticed during my involvement in coaching over the years. Four or five years ago, when I was helping to train a local club team, I looked out the window to see two or three of the guys who were supposed to be training that day walking by with 24-can slabs of €1 beer on their shoulders. It was clear what they were planning to do instead of attending training. I know from my experience of coaching that sport helps to encourage people to be disciplined. I would love if they had gone training that evening instead of going home with slabs of beer on their shoulders. Will this country's issues with drink be solved if we ban alcohol sponsorship, advertisement and promotion of sporting teams and events? That is the key to this.

Having listened to the three presentations, it seems to me that the witnesses are saying this entire problem would be solved if we could prohibit alcohol altogether. Are we heading into a prohibition situation? Deputy Luke 'Ming' Flanagan, who is in attendance, has suggested at other forums that cannabis should be legalised and that such a move would bring a great deal of funding to Governments. Is it possible that alcohol will be driven underground in the future but drugs will be okay?