Mary Henry (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and I particularly welcome the mention in his speech of the fact that alcohol has been identified as such an important risk indicator in teenage pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted infections. An even more serious issue I want to address is the importance of alcohol in drug-induced sexual assaults.

I have here the figures from the sexual assault treatment unit in the Rotunda Hospital for the years 2000 and 2001. There were 253 attendances in 2000 and 256 in 2001. Over one third of cases involved girls under 19 and almost 10% of cases involved girls under 16. In an enormous number of cases these young women had consumed huge quantities of alcohol. The toxicologist told us recently that there were lethal levels of 300-400 milligrams of alcohol in the blood of some of these young women. When we think that 80 milligrams is the limit for driving we can imagine the state these girls were in, especially given that some of them would have had very little experience of alcohol.