Mr. Donall O'Keeffe:

I wish to address the two points, sponsorship and taxation. We see no relation between sponsorship and consumption on the ground, for example when the Heineken Cup is on, we do not see people drinking enormous quantities of Heineken. When the Power Gold Cup National Hunt chase is on, people are not binge drinking Powers Whiskey. When an event is sponsored by the Drinks Industry, it is the event that is important to the trade, consumption is the person's choice.

Ireland is among the very highest taxed European alcohol economies. We have had enormously high levels of alcohol taxation for 15 to 20 years and further increasing alcohol taxes, namely excise, has the singular effect of hurting the pub trade, costing jobs in the pub trade and making no impact whatsoever on the abuse of alcohol.