Mr. Padraig Cribben:

I took part in that programme. If the Deputy recalls the detail, the research on which it was based was flimsy. It appeared to be a quick "phone around" to certain sectors. It appeared to me that very few long distance telephone calls were made. I will not put the matter any further. The reality is - the Deputy talks about towns and villages - the average price of a pint in the country is slightly more than €4. Soft drinks are a small percentage of the business for pubs. Pubs - like any other business - have a range of products and a range of margins. If the margins were excessive, the country would not be losing the thousand pubs lost in the last number of years. We do not have an input on prices. That would be illegal. There are cases where some of the soft drinks prices may be excessive. However, a person can go into a bar and get a soft drink for €2 which is not a huge outlay in today's climate. A rock shandy can be obtained for a lot less than €5 in a lot of pubs around the country.