Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Tánaiste for her response and warm to her closing words, when she moved away from all the legislative pieces that are place. While the legislation is there, my question is about its implementation and enforcement. The Tánaiste talked about the 1998 Act and the issue of delivering alcohol to minors. That is where my biggest concern lies. I am at the stage of bringing teenagers to discos and when I pull up to the disco I am turning into one of those mothers who stays in the car and watches to make sure they go in the door. If I turn my eye and look down along the canal or the walkway, as it is called in Loughrea, I am watching the over-18s sell the cans and bottles. I am a mother in that moment, not a Deputy or anything else. I see the oranges being handed over that have been frozen with vodka, so they can suck on the oranges as they are standing there. I am talking about second and third-year discos.

On the enforcement of the 1998 Act, I suppose we are talking about community policing and so on, while they are doing a fantastic job they cannot watch every last bit of it. How can we progress it on to that part of enforcement?

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