Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations which were interesting to say the least. I was intrigued when I heard the witnesses wanted to address the committee on the importance of the industry to Irish agriculture. I was interested to hear the pitch and it has not disappointed me. It is ironic the drinks industry is presenting to the committee to make the case drink is over-taxed in Ireland on the day the report by the Health Research Board was published.

That is a fallacy when it is estimated that drink-related illnesses cost the Exchequer €3.7 billion a year. According to the Minister's figures, the country is only taking in €3.2 billion in taxation on alcohol. There is a case to increase the taxation to perhaps make it pay for what it costs us as a society to deal with the health issues that arise as a result of alcohol abuse. I understand that farmers make a livelihood from selling malt and barley to the drinks industry. The drinks industry exports to countries where much more responsible drinking takes place than is the case here but, as Deputy Ó Cuív stated, that cannot be divorced from the reality that we face every day in terms of the way alcohol is abused in our society.

According to figures out today, only 26% of people drink more than once a week but that is a huge volume of alcohol for that small proportion of people. If we got down to what would be a healthy level of alcohol consumption, the figure of 11.9 litres per person per annum would reduce significantly, but would the drinks industry representatives be coming in here complaining about how difficult it is to survive because the volume of alcohol being consumed has declined to a healthy rate? Those are the problems we face.

The investment being made by Diageo and Irish Distillers was cited, and the difficulty taxation is causing for those companies. They are investing to export and excise duty levels will not affect them. Therefore, it is disingenuous to cite those investments being put at risk by domestic taxation. Approximately 70% of Guinness produced here - it will probably be more when the new factory is completed - is exported. Ninety per cent of Baileys is exported, and I am sure 80% or 90% of Jameson and other Irish whiskeys are exported also, therefore, the taxation argument does not factor in with regard to the investment decisions those companies are making. They are like all multinational companies in that they make their decisions based on corporation tax and so on. They are not looking at the domestic argument.

The same arguments were made by the pharmaceutical companies when we considered bringing in reference pricing for drugs in the health sector. They said they would leave Ireland if they had to pay a proper price for their drugs. The domestic market is not the deciding factor for their presence here. The taxation provisions they get and the access to other markets is the reason they are here, not because they are looking to make a great deal of money from the domestic market.

I agree that we should examine rebalancing taxation to make it more expensive to purchase in off-licences and to encourage people to go back to the pub because drinking in a pub is more socially acceptable. The vast majority of drinking that takes place now is at home in people's sitting rooms where there is very little control of it. We may not have had perfect control of drinking in pubs, but there is no control in terms of people drinking in their own homes.

There is no doubt that farmers and many others depend on the alcohol business for their livelihood but we must examine the overall impact of the drinks industry, and how we strike a balance in that regard is the key. We might have to look at rebalancing the tax on off-sales as against pub sales. That might do something to help protect jobs in the pub business but it cannot be divorced from the harm alcohol abuse is doing in society, and drinks companies have a role to play in dealing with that harm.