Ms Paula Leonard:

The last speaker emphasised the fact that she represents rural areas. It is really important to acknowledge that as part of Alcohol Forum, I delivered across the Border counties with the exception of Louth. It encompassed Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal. Those counties along the Border necklace in the Republic of Ireland have twice the national rate of poverty according to the new spatial data that has come out. The poverty rate is roughly 22%. There were downsides, include isolation, increased drinking and problematic drinking. We do not know what the long-term outcomes of this will be as a result of Covid. However, there were also some innovations. We talked about the balcony chats. Probably not many people in our area had balconies. What we have seen is that our experienced family practitioners pivoted to online delivery and phone support. One of our programmes is called HOPE, or Have Only Positive Expectations, which involved meeting with families in crisis throughout Covid. It was a six-week evidence-based programme. We found that we were able to deliver that programme to people in rural areas who otherwise might not have been able to attend in person. The future needs to be blended. We need to think about other innovations for rurally dispersed and isolated families who may experience different types of isolation so we need to look at some opportunities in the future.

It is essential that three things happen with the proposed sale of alcohol Bill. The first is that we provide for drink deliveries. Part of that will require us as a country to look at what proper age verification looks like. There is an opportunity in that to also look at proper age verification for online gambling, as has been raised here this morning. That is really important. At what point do we do it, how do we provide information around identification and age verification online, are there secure ways of doing that and how are we protecting young people?

I also want to talk very briefly about what we are very concerned about at a community level. We are concerned about a number of the recommendations in the report of the night-time economy task force report. There is a lot in it that is really welcome. It is saying that we want to have a night-time product that is not overly dependent on the sale of alcohol or chaotic drinking. However, there are provisions within the report that recommend an extension of the number of hours alcohol is being sold and the number of venues in which alcohol is sold. That completely goes against the grain of all of the international evidence that the WHO would cite that basically says there is a fairly simple relationship and that if one increases the availability of alcohol, one will increase the harm from alcohol. There will be increased hospital admissions, increases in antisocial behaviour orders and increases in night-time violence. It is really important that after today, people consider what actually ends up in the sale of alcohol Bill and what we can leave out. I really welcome the fact that Government is considering consolidating alcohol licensing law. This is something that really needs to happen so that communities, An Garda Síochána and licence holders are very clear around what is in the law and what their responsibilities are.