Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have an opportunity to speak. I have listened to everyone's view. I cannot understand why the Bill has taken three years to get to this stage and I will not delay it this evening, but I would like to make a few comments.

I am glad the Minister clarified the situation regarding directional signage for distilleries, breweries, etc., when he spoke. I do not own a pub, I have no axe to grind and, thank God, I can take a drink or leave it. It does not matter to me. At the same time, I recognise the amount of employment that has been created by these industries, particularly in my home town and in other rural areas. They are the only jobs that have come into rural areas since the recession, since the real bang came, and we are lucky to have them. I am delighted there are 30 jobs in my home town. Quite recently there was a visitors' day at the brewery. Some 1,500 people arrived by a special train to my home town to see what happens in breweries. I could not believe it, but it is a massive tourist attraction.

When one considers that 2.5 million people came into this country last year to visit distilleries or breweries throughout the country, including the Guinness Storehouse, it is clear it is big tourist business. All we want to do is ensure we do not damage this because these jobs are awfully important. People have taken big risks to create them. I refer in particular to microbreweries. What we want is a level playing field. I understand what the Minister is trying to do about alcohol. I fully understand, as does everyone in this House and outside it, the damage alcohol does, whether it be fatalities on the road from drink-driving or families destroyed. No one likes this and no one wants to see it, and we are not trying to protect it. What we are trying to do is protect the jobs that have been created in a reasonable manner in order that these people, having invested a lot of money, have an opportunity to survive and that their businesses grow. Most of what is being produced in these breweries and distilleries is being exported. It is not being drunk in Ireland, as far as I can see - very little of it anyway. It is all export, which creates more wealth for the country.

I wish to raise another issue, one to which I referred the other night. I was in a shop the other evening and two cans of lager could be bought for the same price as a bottle of Coke. There is something wrong with that. Young people are in these shops and looking at what is going on in them. This below-cost selling and the sale of loss leaders to try to attract people into businesses need to be addressed.

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