Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make a couple of points. The provision relates to one third of the printed material. Many medical products use concertina labels, so something could be a part of the label without actually being seen. It is hidden in a little envelope of sorts on the side. We should be conscious of that and ensure that "one third of labelling" means "one third of visible labelling" rather than "one third of total labelling on the bottle".

The idea that putting a label on a bottle is a massive job and has a significant cost is almost like saying there is someone going around with a roll of labels sticking them on each bottle. It is a cheap and simple thing to do, but it is being beefed up into something far greater. We can get this to work for imported medicines with overlabelling, so I cannot see any barrier to doing the same in respect of alcohol. We are labelling for the Irish people and the Irish market, and we do not need to be overly concerned about other countries' behaviour. With the smoking ban, we were the leading country. As Deputy O'Reilly mentioned, we could be the lead in this respect as well and other countries could follow suit.

I do not ever want to fall out with Deputy Durkan, but the irradiation of food having a similar carcinogenic effect as alcohol is just a little bit of a sweeping statement for the health committee on a Wednesday morning.