Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I had an economics professor who used to say that good policy internalises the negative externalities. I had no idea what he was talking about for a very long time, but after a while I got my head around it. What he meant was this. There is a bunch of things we do that have consequences, positive and negative. In the world of economists these are externalities. The problem is that if they cause harm and no account is taken of that harm, society is unbalanced. We have not accounted for the negative externalities within public policy. His view was that wherever possible we should internalise or account for some of the damaging things that happen in our society. Everyone in the Chamber probably agrees that alcohol-related presentations at emergency departments are a real problem.

In some cases, people might not have a huge amount of sympathy for those presenting. In many cases, those who have presented due to alcohol-related mischief are seen before those who were not drinking excessively and who really do need to be seen. I support the amendment because it is important. It is an important first step. We need to understand the data. This would greatly increase the ability of our clinicians, particularly those working in emergency departments, to be able to show us the evidence. Then we can legislate and regulate accordingly.

See this speech in context