Mr. Padraig Cribben:

There are two issues. The VAT issue is a simple one. When a retailer buys a product, he or she reclaims the VAT, and when the product is sold, the VAT is passed back to the Exchequer. When the retailer buys at one price and sells at a lower one, he or she is passing back less VAT than he got back himself or herself. In essence, below-cost selling is subsidised by the State. It is as simple as that.

Under-age drinking is a major problem. Looking at the structure of the pub trade in Ireland, 93% of pubs are family owned and family run. In most cases, the customers are friends as well as customers because it is very much in the local area.

We have a responsible serving of alcohol programme, and at this point between 12,000 and 15,000 people in the on-trade have gone through it.

That is not to say there are not pubs in the country in which under-age drinking takes place. It would be wrong to say that, but it is still the safest place to consume alcohol, by a mile. There are measures in the pub but there are no measures at home, and there are controls on under-age drinking in the pub but none of those controls in the home. Much alcohol is consumed outside of the home, be it in parks or wherever, where 14 or 15 year olds are more likely to consume it. In 99.99% of such cases that alcohol does not come from the pub. It is coming from supermarkets, in particular. The way to solve that is to put alcohol in a segregated area in supermarkets. It should be borne in mind that new legislation is not necessary. This is provided for in section 9 of the 2008 Act which was introduced by the former Deputy Dermot Ahern when he was Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, but it was never commenced. All it requires is somebody with a pen to tick a box and off we go. That will solve the problem. I am not saying it will solve it totally, but it will solve most of it and very quickly.