Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

One of the problems is that such services have closed and have not been reopened yet. There should be no reason they should not be reopened now. People are finding that really difficult. As the witnesses will be aware, there is sometimes only a small window of opportunity when somebody is at that moment in time and ready to look at their addiction in a worthwhile way. I thank Ms MacAndrew for her response.

I have a little time left so I will speak to the representatives from Alcohol Forum Ireland. We had a similar initiative in Clondalkin on combating alcohol abuse when I was out there. I know Ms Leonard did not get a chance to discuss her recommendations at the end because of time constraints but one of our findings was the saturation of alcohol advertisement that was going on, especially in sports. For example, during the last Six Nations match between Ireland and Scotland, there were 690 alcohol ads, one every 15 seconds. I read Ms Leonard's report before this meeting. She said one of her recommendations was to implement the Public Health (Alcohol) Act in full but does she see a reduction in alcohol advertisement as part of the solution?