Ms Suzanne Costello:

Irish Rail has restricted drinking on the Galway to Dublin route. I travelled on a train recently and quite a degree of low-level drinking was taking place. A man sitting beside me opened a suitcase which was full of cans of beer - obviously at the cheaper end of the scale - and proceeded to drink for the duration of the journey. He did not do any harm to anyone other than himself. Another party travelling with a group of young children became significantly inebriated and got locked in the bathrooms. The children in question were trying to have them rescued. This is everyday life in Ireland. In certain cases it is somewhat comical and no harm was done in either of the instances to which I refer. However, what I have described feeds into the normalisation of that type of culture. As stated earlier, the latter is probably one of the most difficult things to identify because we are all brought up with it. In the past few years it has become increasingly difficult to identify that normalisation, which is making people resistant to the changes that are required.

The evidence supplied by Professor Stockwell, Professor Barry and many others in respect of this matter is overwhelming. Many people have commissioned research and produced reports over quite a number of years. Yesterday, the HSE produced its Alcohol's Harm to Others in Ireland report and it contains some shocking statistics. We must fight the normalisation of alcohol as opposed to just accepting it. The only way to address this matter is through regulation and also the measures outlined in the Bill. I do not believe that the latter are going to have catastrophic effects, rather they will have largely positive impacts. There will, perhaps, be an impact on the profitability on some aspects of the industry. However, that is a very small price to pay in the context of people's lives and the type of society we are trying to create.