Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

At the risk of being politically incorrect tá cathú mór orm deoch a bheith agam tar éis na díospóireachta seo. Ba mhaith liom é sin a chur i gcomhthéacs. I am tempted to say I am looking forward to a drink after this debate and long day. There is nothing wrong with taking a drink. What we are discussing here is the abuse of drink. It is important to put the matter in perspective. For the first time, we are addressing alcohol as a public matter. I welcome that very much, given that the abuse of alcohol is responsible for approximately - I hate that word when talking about deaths - 90 deaths per month in this country and the accident and emergency departments are overwhelmed with drink related problems and illnesses, not to mention the inter-generational effects of alcohol such as violence, assault and domestic violence. There are also the economic costs. In 2004, and the price has increased since then, the CEO of the Health Research Board provided figures on the economic costs. At that time it was €2.39 billion in combined health and crime-related costs and €527 million in lost economic output.

The Minister clarified that the overall purpose of the Bill is to contribute to the reduction of the harmful use of alcohol or the harmful result of the abuse of alcohol. Indeed, the steering group gave a target of reducing alcohol consumption to 9.1 litres per capita, representing a 23% reduction over the 2010 figures. I welcome what is being attempted in the Bill, although I will return to the reservations I harbour. I welcome that the Bill targets some specific areas. I have no difficulty with that. One is price, although I have a guarded opinion on the minimum price and whether it will achieve what is hoped. However, I give it a guarded welcome. The other areas are availability and marketing. I welcome without hesitation the action on advertising, which does not go far enough but I will return to that, and the labelling.

As many speakers have said, the minimum price seeks to target cheap alcohol consumed by those most at risk. We can estimate the value to society of introducing that if we extrapolate from the Sheffield research. I do that with a caveat because it is difficult to extrapolate and also because there will be no increase in the minimum price until after a three-year period. It is not clear if it will be linked to the consumer price index or adjusted for inflation. However, the estimated saving is €1.7 billion. These are important matters to be considered. I welcome the ban on advertising near schools and in parks, playgrounds and public transport, as well as the prohibition of price-based promotions. In particular, I welcome the ban on advertising on children's clothing. I also welcome section 21, which gives the Minister the power to restrict the sale and supply of alcohol products.

I have a difficulty with where we are going in respect of alcohol and the serious nature of that issue in our country. There is a certain hypocrisy, not on the part of the Minister but on all our parts. As I said, half in jest but also seriously, I will enjoy a drink tonight. There is a certain amount of hypocrisy in the way we talk about alcohol and how to deal with it, while not acknowledging that we have failed utterly to treat the reasons people drink in the first place. I do not expect the Minister to capture all of that in one legislative measure. However, people drink for many reasons and we are not tackling those reasons. We do not lead by example when we celebrate. When the former President of the United States visited Ireland, we all delighted in the fact that he was seen drinking a pint of Guinness. When we go out, it is difficult to get a cup of tea at regular functions. It is much easier to get wine and so forth.

The legislation utterly ignores off-licences, which are allowed to be as attractive as possible. What captured the difficulty for me was the attempt in the Bill, particularly before it was amended in the Seanad, to have physical barriers erected in shops, as if that was the problem. It is as if someone going into the SuperValu near my home - although it has changed its name now - and seeing drink would be encouraged to buy it. I do not accept the logic that somebody will buy drink just because it is near the butter and that it must be segregated, while yards down the road there is an off-licence with a sign offering two bottles of Buckfast Tonic Wine for €20. Initially, requiring a physical barrier to be erected in small shops in rural areas was simply unacceptable. It fails to deal with the problem of alcohol abuse. It was targeting an outlet that was not responsible for the alcohol abuse and not targeting those responsible for it.

I am very familiar with the legislation that has been brought forward repeatedly over the years but never implemented. It is an offence for a publican to serve somebody who is intoxicated. It is an offence to drink on the streets of Galway. We introduced by-laws prohibiting drinking on the streets in Galway. Immediately, however, we had to make exceptions because it is a city of culture, of which I am proud, a bilingual city and a city of festivals. The pressure groups said that we had to allow drinking on the streets, so now we have by-laws that mean nothing. The gardaí told us they could not enforce the law because they did not have the authority to confiscate and destroy. We introduced by-laws to allow gardaí to confiscate and destroy the drink, but then exceptions were introduced. There was also a lack of gardaí on the ground. One can see the level of hypocrisy and duplicity here. It is okay to drink to excess during a racing festival. We could not possibly stop people in Galway drinking in the streets during the races, yet we will tell young people not to drink. I have a difficulty with the hypocrisy of how we do that at a societal level. I am glad that changes have been made with regard to the physical barriers. Otherwise, I certainly would not have voted for the legislation, even though it contains many good sections.

Tomorrow, the Committee of Public Accounts will discuss the Dormant Account Fund. A substantial amount of the Dormant Account Fund has not been used. Imagine that happening with a fund established to deal with disadvantaged areas and to help people with education. These are specific points, but it is completely underused.

We will tomorrow be examining the reasons for that. No review has been carried out in that regard. Those funds should have been used for young people and targeted at those in need, both areas which are underfunded. We do not have enough community centres or alternatives for our young people.

If we are serious about dealing with alcohol, it is not by banning it, putting up physical barriers or going back to the days of prohibition in America that this will be done but, rather, by beginning to grow up as a society. Alcohol is not bad in moderation. The abuse of alcohol is a very significant problem in our society that we have condoned on every single level. Young people are far too clever for us and they see our hypocrisy. When I go home and talk to my sons and their friends, I will be met with that hypocrisy and they will go to a pub and drink shots. The level of over-drinking is astounding and we must deal with it.

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