Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Listening to some Members, one would think we were proposing to ban alcohol. We need to get this into perspective. The point of sports sponsorship is to create an association between alcohol and positive events in life, particularly positive events for young people, such as sport and music events. They do that because it works. They plough millions of euro into it every year because it works. It recruits young drinkers. Let us not fool ourselves about that. On section 15, something is better than nothing, but it is weak. What is the Minister talking about when he refers to events where a majority of participants are children? There are few such events - perhaps community games or a swimming gala. The main sports that kids are really caught up in, interested in and enjoy are those with heavy sponsorship. There is a reason for that. I note what the Minister says about the review in three years. That is fine.

The difficulty is that this whole process started nine years ago when the steering group was set up. Are we going to go through another big long rigmarole on this again for a review? The commitment is that in three years' time a review will be established so it is kicking it down the road quite a bit. Is the Minister prepared to go a bit further tonight and to commit to setting up a group to examine the issue in the short term with a view to having the analysis and research done within three years in time for the statutory commitment to review the situation?

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