John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

I thank the Chair for the opportunity to raise an extremely important health issue. When I discovered last week that the alcohol products (control of advertising, sponsorship and marketing practices/sales promotions) Bill had disappeared from the list of promised legislation, I raised the issue with the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, neither of whom were concerned in the slightest that a major legislative plank of this country's attempts to deal with alcohol abuse had been abandoned.

It is strange that they could not have cared less — the same is true of large sections of the media and the main Opposition parties — given the extent of the well-documented problems associated with alcohol. In his indifferent response, the Taoiseach said that self-regulation often works best. The Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Seán Power, recently said on RTE that he is convinced the alcohol industry will act responsibly. If the vintners had been allowed to introduce the smoking ban in pubs on the basis of self-regulation, it would never have happened.

The Government response is shameful and deeply corrupt. It has bowed to an industry which produces the most harmful drug, albeit a legal one, in Irish society. It is a drug responsible for violence and disorder, serious health problems, marriage breakdown, suicide and depression, absenteeism and major problems in our accident and emergency units. It costs the State millions of euro every year. Yet, the Government has decided to play ball with the producers of this drug. It is nauseating to watch Ministers make sanctimonious statements about drugs like hashish and cocaine, and get cheap publicity for doing so, while at the same time ignoring the main problem. They ignore their own reports, the Strategic Task Force on Alcohol's recommendations and the statements from the previous Minister for Health and Children, who proposed introducing this legislation in 2003. All these recommendations are to be ignored at the behest of the alcohol industry, which the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and the Minister of State, Deputy Sean Power, tell us will act responsibly.

What does "acting responsibly" mean? It means showing advertisements and encouraging people to drink while at the same time displaying a small piece of advice to "enjoy alcohol responsibly". We cannot afford to be naive about this. The aim of the alcohol industry is to increase profits and to sell as much alcohol as possible. How is this aim compatible with the aims of the Government, which ought to be concerned first and foremost with the public good and protecting society and public health? However, as we have seen time and again with the Fianna Fáil-PD Administration, profits come before people. This latest U-turn is symptomatic of just how deep the Government has sunk into the corporate mire. No doubt Fianna Fáil and the PDs will benefit handsomely from the drinks industry for the way in which they have kowtowed to these vested interests.

It all comes at the cost of society. The alcohol products (control of advertising, sponsorship and marketing practices/sales promotions) Bill was supposed to "protect children and adolescents from over-exposure to alcohol advertising". The new laws were supposed to limit where alcohol advertisements could be placed and introduce a watershed for children on radio, television and cinema. The contents of advertisements were not to appeal to children in any way and there was to be a ban on sponsorship of activities involving young people. The members of the Joint Committee on Health and Children went much further. We said there should be a complete ban on alcohol advertisements, having heard all of the conclusive evidence. We considered the problem of alcohol in some detail and felt we were left with no alternative.

The dropping of this legislation raises a fundamental question about the relevance of Parliament. If expert opinions and reports from a joint committee are to be totally ignored by the Government, why are we here? Who calls the shots? Who has the power? Is it the elected representatives or the powerful lobbyists on behalf of vested interests? Surely this is yet another example of why we need to know who is lobbying on behalf of whom, to whom they have spoken and the content of those negotiations. We need a register of lobbyists.

The alcohol industry can claim a major victory. The loser is society and this Parliament. This is a sick and corrupt Government. The Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, and her party, the Progressive Democrats, should hang their heads in shame.

See this speech in context