Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to put on record my support for this Bill. It is very important legislation. The facts regarding our relationship with drink are borne out by evidence published by Revenue's statistics and economic research branch recently to the effect that Ireland's alcohol consumption per capitahas increased by nearly 5% year on year up to 2016. Per head, people in Ireland are drinking 11.46 litres of pure alcohol per annum. This is equivalent to nearly 500 pints of beer, 46 bottles of vodka or 130 bottles of wine per year. We have a problem and there is an issue with alcohol consumption and our relationship with alcohol. This does not mean it is all negative but the measures within the Bill to protect the most vulnerable, especially children, from the normalisation of alcohol consumption through advertising are very much welcome. Deputy Breathnach referred to some very valid concerns regarding jobs in the industry, but they can be managed.

I want to talk about my own position as the chairperson of the north Dublin regional drugs and alcohol task force, a position I have held for nearly five years. The Government has a lot of focus and commitment in respect of this matter and has put a lot of effort into the legislation, and rightly so. The Bill is welcome but it is not a silver bullet. I do not see increased supports, such as those necessary on the ground, being provided in tandem with this. Under the new drugs and alcohol strategy published by the Minister of State, Deputy Catherine Byrne, the community action on alcohol has been put in place. It has asked each of the 14 local drugs task forces and the ten regional drugs and alcohol task forces to implement the community actions on alcohol. That is a really good idea because this is how each community deals with alcohol, not by banning, shunning or parking the issue but by members of communities taking a role in respect of how alcohol is perceived and through events. In my area in Fingal, we got the local authority and the sports clubs involved. Each of the areas needs an extra €45,000, at a minimum, to implement these. If the House will excuse the pun, that is small beer. We do not have that money. I ask the Minister of State, Deputy Griffin, and his colleagues to look at how these areas are resourced to implement the community action on alcohol. We need to do that.

In the context of the task forces areas, my area in north Dublin has a catchment of 330,000 people and has not received an increase in funding in eight years. Our funding for the entire service is €777,000 per annum. That is for more than 300,000 people. We do not even have an education and prevention worker in the area. We can talk about the legislation, which I welcome, but we must also talk about what is happening on the ground. In the area in which I live, Swords, we set up a community care team because there was no such team for the whole of the north County Dublin area. We had to pull funding from other projects to employ people directly. More than 1,000 people have been treated by the service, which is based in Swords and which provides outreach services to places such as Rush, Malahide and many other locations throughout the north of the county. We did not get one extra cent for that. We did it ourselves. When the Government talks of the need to legislate to protect people against the ills of alcohol or to at least redress the balance, it is absolutely right. However, let it put its money where its mouth is in order that we might deal with education, treatment and rehabilitation, which are simply not available across large swathes of the country. That needs to be discussed as part of this debate and as the Bill proceeds to Committee Stage.

As the chair of the regional drugs and alcohol task force, I wholeheartedly support the Bill. There will be issues for the industry to deal with but these will have to be worked through. I would love to see the same commitment from Government and for it to say that while a good job is being done on the ground by the community sector and the HSE, they are wholly under-resourced. If we want to stop people falling into problematic drinking in particular - and I am focusing on drinking as an example - then we must provide resources. How is that the case when we publish a new national drugs and alcohol strategy - which I welcome - but do not offer additional resources? The community action on alcohol project has not received any additional resources. We need those resources and I ask the Minister of State to consider the position in this regard. I will also be asking the Minister of State, Deputy Catherine Byrne, about this because I believe a meeting is scheduled for 28 February. We need Government support.

I am certain - and also from the perspective of the Fianna Fáil spokesperson, Deputy Jack Chambers - that we can effect real change from the ground up. Legislation is about setting the rules. If we do not change how we operate within our communities, the Bill, upon enactment, will not protect people or change their lives. We can only do that through our communities. This is why the community action on alcohol project is a really important part of the strategy. Let us resource it and let us properly resource our regional and local drugs and alcohol task forces. That is where we are making real interventions and real strides with this.

I ask the Minister of State to take those points on board. I look forward to seeing this Bill proceeding through Committee Stage. Let us resource the people on the ground who are doing the real work to protect our kids against alcohol and drug abuse.

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