Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank my colleague, Deputy Rice, for bringing forward this legislation. The angle the Government has taken in opposing this legislation is that there is a lack of evidence that 0.0 beer has any health implications. This is a misunderstanding of why advertising 0.0 beer is not appropriate near schools, crèches and in sporting facilities. It is the same as when it was banned for full alcohol or whatever the levels of alcohol were.

The difficulty for me, as someone who has worked with children and young people for close to 30 years, is we are trying to discourage young people from drinking beer and taking substances that harm their brain development. We do not want them drinking alcohol, for the reason that the brain is not fully formed. In fact, some people would say it is not fully formed until they are about 25, so even drinking at 18 has detrimental effects on brain development and other parts of the body. Of course, as we all know as adults in this building and everywhere else in this country, alcohol also makes you do mad things, if you drink to excess.

We know the harmful effects of alcohol on everybody and young people do too. As someone who has worked with young people for a very long time, I do not want to see any alcohol advertised to them, especially when they are in sporting facilities or outside a school, as Deputy Rice said. That is why those bans are in place. Even if it says 0.0 beside it, young people see through that; they know exactly what is going on. I have been told by many young people, "Sure I can drink a 0.0 beer. There is no alcohol in it. What is the big deal?" Years ago, we used to talk about gateway drugs. This is a gateway - this is saying 0.0 is fine, so you can drink it. We need to have a debate here because what we are doing is showing young people they can drink 0.0 because it is fine, but we do not want them drinking beer at all. How do we know they are not drinking 0.0 one minute and then drinking the full thing the next minute? At what age do we say that is too young? Is it at ten that they can drink 0.0 beer? Would you give your six-year-old a 0.0 beer?

The conversation here has slid a little. The reason we should not be advertising 0.0 is not because it is zero alcohol and it does not have the effects full alcohol has, it is because young people see it and go, "Sure I can have one of them. Can I have one?" For parents, it is a difficulty. I know people my age with children where this is a difficulty. You are at social events and your child wants to drink a 0.0 beer. It is about looking at that part of it and not sliding around the other part saying, "Well, there is no evidence to say there are health implications with 0.0 beer."

I am little disappointed in the Government for taking that angle. Often when we come here to talk about health things, and it seems to always be on a Thursday, whether it is vapes or alcohol or whatever, there is massive lobbying going on about this. It is unacceptable. We should look at our conscience. This is also an ethical issue. Is it right to advertise beer, whether it is 0.0 or not? I agree with Deputy Rice that if you look at the adverts that are put up on our social media today, you would not know the difference. You would want to be looking very clearly because it is very smart marketing. That is what we are looking to address here. It is about not being outsmarted by that marketing for 0.0 because it is obviously not about that; it is about the full alcohol.

I commend Deputy Rice and his team on their work on this. I would like Government to reflect on what we have had to say here. I am not sure how that goes with removing amendments, but perhaps that might be something that would be considered.

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