Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)

I wish to share time with Deputy Andrew Doyle. I will have 12 minutes and Deputy Doyle eight.

I congratulate my parliamentary soccer colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, on his new position. I wish him the best in his role. I have long been an advocate of intervention, especially through youth participation.

I welcome many elements in this Bill. The small shopkeepers to whom Deputy Scanlon referred had a major battle on their hands when this Bill was published. They would have had to invest €60,000-€100,000 in building a separate section in shops, as well as putting personnel in this area.

Without analysing this measure too critically, one might have thought it would curb young people's access to drink. When I consulted with the shopkeepers and saw the code of ethics they have, such as ensuring that those who sell drink are over 18, I did not see the merit in the measure. I welcome the fact the Minister has addressed this. We must continue to examine this area. Members have referred to a mandatory identification card system. That is the way to curb the problem, not by putting extra costs on shopkeepers.

Coming from a rural constituency, I saw this as another law that would possibly close local shops. That was all it would do, it would not curb the purchase of drink by young people. It was another element of the type of bureaucracy we are introducing that makes it virtually impossible for businesses to survive in rural areas. It has created an urban-rural divide, and I do not refer to the east-west divide, which is too simplistic. The divide is between urban and rural, even in areas that are predominantly rural. People living in the countryside feel they are doing more of their business in urban areas. Those providing essential services in the countryside are finding it ever more difficult to survive, especially with extra bureaucracy coming down the line.

As legislators we must critically examine the cultural impact on people living in the countryside. The Government has brought in laws that make it quite impossible for people to continue with their culture in their communities. That is a sad indictment of the type of society we are trying to create. This occurred to me when a shopkeeper told me he could not incur losses of €60,000 and would have to close his shop.

When we critically examine the Lisbon treaty referendum we can examine a county like Donegal and specifically Oileán Thoraí where, according to anecdotal evidence, only one person voted "Yes". Tory Island is the most peripheral part of Ireland and of Europe. The further one gets from Brussels and Dublin, the higher the "No" vote. I spoke to the Ceann Comhairle this morning about the high "No" vote in Kerry. Something negative is happening in rural Ireland and we must become conscious of it. We have driven a wedge between urban and rural areas and the people living in rural areas are not willing to put up with it anymore. An example is the attempt by this Government to remove coastguard services from Valentia, County Kerry and Malin Head. That is another element why people voted "No" in the referendum. They focused on the local rather than the European picture.

Perhaps I have digressed from the Bill. I welcome the fact that off-licences will close at 10.30 p.m. I passed one at 12.30 a.m. last Saturday and there was a mighty congregation of young people outside it. The ban on below cost selling promotions is welcome. However, as the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Ó Cuív, stated, this is the beginning of the debate. It is unfortunate it did not get going ten years ago. This Bill is scratching the surface of our attempts to change the culture. Deputy Scanlon expressed it succinctly when he said that young people are resilient and will find other ways of getting drink. The major thing we must change is culture. The only way to change any element of culture is by preventative measures and education. No rule or regulation will change the culture of underage drinking. The more rules and restrictions we impose on young people, the more they will step around them. We must get to the core of what is happening in our culture.

I welcome the comment by the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Ó Cuív, that this does not only apply to young people. There is overindulgence and we are all involved. There should be a survey of the 166 Deputies in this House to see what age each started drinking. Perhaps we were all 21. We need a reality check when examining our culture. In the constituency of the Acting Chairman, Deputy O'Connor, there are serious issues with underage drinking. Anecdotally, it seems the age is dropping all the time and young people are getting braver at a younger age.

We must examine community responsibility, intertwined with parental responsibility and a pro-active, multi-agency response. I do not refer to producing more reports and policies on what we need to do. We must get engaged at the grassroots level and examine the education sector. Schools should not stop junior and senior infant classes at 1 p.m., nor at 3 p.m. for older classes, nor 4 p.m. for secondary students. School must be ongoing. Students do not pick up bad or deviant behaviour during school hours but during out of school hours. The Minister of State has a role to examine the roll-out of intervention projects. I have confidence he will do so.

I received a call from a young person about The LOFT in Letterkenny, which Deputy Blaney knows. It was a productive and useful intervention model, where young people could congregate after school in a non-alcoholic environment. Young people do not necessarily want to engage in drinking. The single biggest attraction for young people, and we are all the same, is to be with their peers and have some banter. That is their main motivation. Those who are good at sport can do it on the Gaelic field or the soccer field and those who are excellent at music meet their peers there. However, the vast majority of young people do not fall into these compartments but they still want to be with each other. I acknowledge the fact the Government funded The LOFT but young people are faced with a predicament. The lease is up in September and the whole project is up in the air.

We must realise that we do not need new buildings or to target special, multipurpose centres. The community and enterprise section of Donegal County Council compiled an inventory and was amazed at the amount of buildings lying idle, either through the church, secondary school or primary school. We have a bank of premises that could be used in a positive and productive way at inter-agency, local level. I am not referring to inter-agency work at a policy level with briefs and bringing people together. Every parish in the country has buildings that are not utilised. All that is required is leadership through community initiatives in each of these parishes.

I do not like speaking about what I was involved in because everybody likes to speak about their own projects and what works best for them. However, I was employed as a youth worker on a peace and reconciliation project between 1997 and 1999 and I was on my own with one portakabin and every day after 3 p.m. 250 young people under the age of 14 crammed through the door. I was not able to do the job on my own so I looked around the town and saw student gardaí, student nurses and people on FÁS and community employment courses. Letterkenny had a database of people willing to engage and give up their time on a voluntary basis. During this two year period, more than 100 people worked in the portakabin on a voluntary basis at no cost to the State, the parents or the children. This is about co-ordination and utilising the voluntary goodwill in our communities. It is intervention for young people after 1 p.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. We still have a mindset that education stops once the school bag lands on the kitchen table and the children look for their grub. This is when the problems start.

After school and at weekends let us give our young people something positive in which to engage. Let us give them the advantages to change the culture. We can do this. I know I used a negative example of the cultural shifts and changes in rural Ireland. However, we can change this culture and the only way we will do it is through community empowerment and intervention, utilising the goodwill out there and showing some leadership.

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