Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This question relates to sponsorship of sport by the alcohol industry. I fully support the central aim of the national substance misuse strategy in reducing the level of alcohol consumption and binge drinking. I am very supportive of a number of the measures proposed, including minimum pricing, health warning labels and statutory advertising codes. However, I am concerned that placing constraints on sporting organisations by eliminating the alcohol industry as a source of sponsorship will have negative impacts on the development and availability of sport and, consequently, on our efforts to maintain and increase sporting participation at local level.

There are huge and obvious economic, social and health benefits accruing from sport. It is very important that funding is available to sports organisations to ensure that sport is maintained at grassroots level so that as many people as possible can participate. In view of the current economic constraints, Government investment in sport has had to be reduced in recent years. The imposition of a ban on sponsorship would further undermine the efforts of sporting organisations to be self-sufficient.

It is estimated that sport sponsorship by the alcohol industry amounts to around €30 million per year. To place this in context, the Irish Sports Council's budget is just over €40 million. Difficulties currently being experienced by some of our high profile teams and events in securing sponsorship suggest that the funding lost might not readily be replaced by alternative sources. Sports organisations may well be placed in a position where they have to curtail their development programmes, which are crucial to promoting participation at all levels.

I believe that any measures introduced should be evidence-based, effective and reasonable. The evidence from the Government's report, State of the Nation's Children, is that the proportion of young people who do not commence drinking before the age of 18 is growing very substantially in Ireland. This has occurred in an era of greatly increased exposure to sports sponsorship by drinks companies, particularly through high profile tournaments with saturation TV coverage. On the other hand, in France, which has a ban on such sponsorship, the evidence is that drinking by young people is increasing. It is worth mentioning that Great Britain took the failure of the French approach into account in deciding not to ban alcohol sponsorship of sport. Similarly, whatever decision we take should be evidence-based.

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