Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will. I will not try to hold up this debate. I was not going to speak and I am glad my colleague, Deputy Donnelly, has provided a strong support for this. I was saddened at the weekend because I had thought we were going to remove this measure from the Bill. We should be a leader in Europe when it comes to public health and alcohol. My party leader, Deputy Martin, took on the smoking and tobacco industry many years ago, and the same spurious claims were made by that industry as are being made now. Ireland became a leader of change in public healthcare around warnings, labels and so on, and it is important we do the same with alcohol.

People will still take a drink and tourists will still come here and have a drink. To say there will be an Armageddon effect is misleading people again. There will still be jobs and growth in this industry, but we need to present people with the facts. I would prefer fewer nurses, doctors and GPs to be dealing with the acute issues of alcohol in our primary community care and hospital system, rather than reverting to the people who are just in one's ear, lobbying about something that relates to their pocket rather than public health.

I commend the Minister and the various parties for pushing this and keeping it at the threshold where it is. It is important that we send out that message from this Chamber.

See this speech in context