Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 25 September 2012

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Beverage Exports: Discussion with Drinks Industry Group of Ireland

1:55 pm

Mr. Kieran Tobin:

The MEAS organisation has the consumer-facing brand called DrinkAware. That was put in place by the drinks industry approximately eight or ten years ago, and it has been building since. It is the only significant initiative in terms of funding and presence, and it has achieved certain things. Clearly it has not achieved all it set out to do but we would be very happy to work with the Government on this. We would love to have a conversation with the Government about what we do, and how we have put in €20 million or the equivalent into MEAS and DrinkAware. We would like to see how to co-operate to address the issues facing our industry and society in general regarding misuse and abuse of alcohol. We are certainly open to those kinds of discussions.