Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

How much exactly did "The Party's Over" campaign cost? Although I do not like saying so, I was disappointed with the advertisements. At a time when there was never as much talk about drugs, we never had as many crises about drugs and we never had as many people dying from drugs, the campaign was too light. I thought that we would have a campaign such as that for drink driving in which there would be a positive effect where people would see what happens.

It is one thing to have an awareness campaign, but it must be effective and I felt that this campaign was not. I want to know how much we paid for it. Personally, I was disappointed with the way that this was rolled out. I would hope that future campaigns will be more striking and convincing and get the message across.

Is this campaign being brought to the schools, to the colleges and onto the streets with public meetings? It is far more effective to bring it into the schools and to the colleges and to call public meetings to show what is happening.

See this speech in context