Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

Sinn Féin welcomes the fact that the café bar proposal has been dropped. It was supposedly aimed at changing drinking culture, addressing binge drinking and related public order offences and countering the trend towards superpubs. The Minister, Deputy McDowell, failed to demonstrate how the creation of another category of licensed premises would achieve any of this, given that pubs already serve food and many of them are making the changes necessary to accommodate that.

It was ludicrous to suggest that the drinking culture could be changed and that people could be induced to go out for meals with drinks rather than have drinks alone, by means of a change in the licensing laws. The law would have created more outlets for alcohol consumption in addition to existing pubs, including superpubs. This undermined the argument that it would address over-consumption of alcohol. The case is well put that it would not and that has been recognised by the Minister of State's colleagues in the Fianna Fáil Party in the coalition.

The ill-fated proposals of the Minister, Deputy McDowell, ignored the reality in smaller towns and rural districts, like the constituency of Cavan-Monaghan which I represent, where many small, family-run pubs which the Minister supposedly favours are closing down. In Castleblayney alone, five pubs have closed which were operated by and sustained families for generations.

I participate in this debate as my party's spokesperson on health because alcohol should be seen first as a health issue. It is very disturbing that the Minister gave no weight to the opposition to his proposal on café bars on health grounds from the Government's strategic task force on alcohol, the Irish Medical Organisation and the national alcohol policy adviser to the Department of Health and Children. In that regard it was reported today that the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting last night heard the Minister, Deputy McDowell, who must have been a guest speaker, dismiss Dr. Joe Barry of the strategic task force on alcohol as someone who wanted to give syringes to drug addicts in prison. I challenge the Minister to come to the House and repeat exactly what he said.

If the report is correct, it is yet another contemptuous dismissal by the Minister of a very serious proposal, that is, needle exchange in prisons, which in other countries has proven to be an important method of addressing infections such as HIV and hepatitis C and the danger of injuries to staff from concealed needles. Once again the Minister displayed his refusal to listen and learn by treating a serious issue in this offhand manner. The extent of his ignorance of effective drug policy is perhaps best illustrated by his plan to introduce mandatory drug testing of prisoners at a time when the Scottish prison system is scrapping a similar programme because it leads prisoners to switch from cannabis to heroin use.

The debate we should be having is one on our society's attitude to alcohol and how that drug is regulated. Our first concern should be public health. Alcohol related illness affects far more people than alcohol related anti-social behaviour and neither are acceptable.

This is all-Ireland men's health week called for by the Men's Health Forum. I commend it on its initiative. In its excellent report, Men's Health in Ireland, it highlights how men, particularly young men, are more at risk from the dangers of alcohol consumption. The sharp increase in alcohol consumption in this State over the past decade is reflected in a rise in drink related illnesses, including cancers, and in deaths. This aspect of the alcohol debate gets far too little attention. We need resources to educate people about the dangers. The Fine Gael motion calls for existing legislation to be enforced to tackle drink related public disorder. We concur with that view. We do not need new laws.

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