Ms Suzanne Costello:

The Deputy referred to Brendan Behan. If I am correct - Professor Barry will ensure that I am - I understand we have doubled our level of alcohol consumption since the 1960s. Brendan Behan, Patrick Kavanagh and others were characterised as hard-drinking men during that decade but we consume a great deal more alcohol than they ever did. It is important to make that point.

In the context of the Deputy's other point, we tend to promote the national image. I mentioned, when addressing a forum similar to this one, that when we attend meetings in Europe, the culture of drinking and the fact that alcohol is in our DNA is mentioned by representatives from every other country. We are nothing special in terms of our view in this regard. Fáilte Ireland's promotional video for the last St. Patrick's Festival was probably the first which did not contain any references to alcohol. We are all aware that every dignitary who visits the country is either taken to a pub or a brewery. We absolutely respect the legitimate activities of the drinks industry and the fact that there is a heritage around certain aspects of that industry. However, this does not need to be the core focus of our tourism promotion. If people are concerned about our international image being one of the drunken Paddy or whatever, we must consider whether we are promoting ourselves in that way. My impression is that we are actively promoting ourselves in that way and I am of the view that we need to step back from that. I was in Dublin Airport after the St. Patrick's Festival weekend. The impression gained at that point would be that the fallout from said weekend was very much how we promote ourselves to visitors and that people had come here for that particular experience. I am not sure that is either a sustainable tourism strategy in the long term or something we should be seeking to continue.