Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 21:

In page 20, between lines 13 and 14, to insert the following:“Prohibition of sports sponsorship

15.(1) Alcohol sponsorship will be phased out by 31 December 2023.

(2) In this section—

“sponsorship” means any form of public or private contribution to any sports event, sports area, association or person with the aim or direct or indirect effect of promoting an alcohol product or brand or alcohol consumption;

“sports area” means an area, whether indoors or outdoors, where participants participate in sporting activities, or competitors compete in sporting competitions, and includes a playing pitch or area, a swimming pool, an athletics track, a dog or horse racing track or a motor racing track.”.

Comprehensive evidence shows that children and young people are not only exposed to a large amount of alcohol marketing but that their behaviour and beliefs are influenced by these messages about alcohol and its use, increasing the likelihood they will start to drink or, if using alcohol, drink more. Unfortunately, our sporting organisations are now one of the primary vehicles through which the alcohol industry markets its unhealthy products. Sports should be inspiring and encouraging good health and active participation, not alcohol consumption.

Exposure to alcohol sponsorship during sporting events themselves is just one part of it. Alcohol sponsorship of sport is now the foundation for a wide range of alcohol marketing activity, with advertising in a variety of forms then used to activate the sports sponsorship and drive consumption of alcohol. Pairing a healthy activity such as sport with a potentially unhealthy product such as alcohol is inappropriate and ultimately makes that product seem less unhealthy. It creates a culture where children and young people perceive alcohol consumption as something closely associated with sporting success and celebration. We need to break the link between this healthy activity and this potentially unhealthy product as we did with tobacco.

A ban on alcohol sponsorship of sport would help to protect children from exposure to the relentless promotion of alcohol. Phasing out alcohol sponsorship of sport over several years, rather than seeking to implement an immediate ban, is a proportionate response and one that provides sporting organisations with the time they need to secure replacement sponsors. Again, the recommendation of the steering group on the national substance abuse strategy was that drinks industry sponsorship of sport and other large public events should be phased out in legislation by 2016.

We have ignored that proposal and now this legislation could and should aim to address that. The steering group noted the need to balance the argument on support for sponsorship with the requirement to decouple the association between sports and culture with alcohol in order to protect public health. It is by phasing out sponsorship that we give sporting bodies the chance to examine alternative sources of sponsorship.

See this speech in context