Geraldine Feeney (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and thank him for spending time with us. I regret that his colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Tom Kitt, has left. I remember in his previous ministry when he regulated consumer affairs that he described alcopops as insidious concoctions and introduced a regulation requiring them to be displayed alongside alcoholic drinks in bars, supermarkets and off-licences and not put to one side and glossed up to look like sweets or something similar to appear attractive to children. He wanted them highlighted for the dangerous drinks they are. It makes me feel that consecutive Governments, especially Fianna Fáil-led ones, have done something to try to combat the terrible cancer of under age drinking.

People have spoken about statistics relating to the rising numbers and high percentage of young people who are drinking, so I will not cover that ground. Drink is part of our culture and heritage almost from the time we are born. We have always celebrated events with a great deal of alcohol, be they weddings, christenings, graduations – second and third level – sporting events or wakes. We pat each other on the back, congratulate each other and joke later about the morning after the night before.

If one looks at where we are at today, it can be seen that we have not come very far. We can argue whether it is the good economy we have that is resulting in all this drinking or just that we are now coming into our own. There is a different relationship now between teenagers and our generation as parents, but perhaps that debate is for another day.

I was glad to hear the Leader say we would resume this debate if there was not enough time. When I researched this subject, I was alarmed to read that in parts of the country children as young as nine years were experimenting with drink. It is frightening to think what an underdeveloped liver, not to mention a young mind, can make of alcohol at that age.

The Minister will be interested in an article in the Sunday Independent on 8 December, which relates the saddest story ever of a young girl who said that when she became old enough to have her first legal drink, she was drying out in a treatment centre. The names used in the article were Carol and her daughter, Holly, but those are not their real names. Holly said:

Alcoholism turns you into a horrible person. It strips you of your dignity, takes your friends away and hurts everybody around you, in particular those you love most.

That is what I would expect somebody in middle age to say, certainly not a young girl of 18 years on the brink of adulthood. She went on to say:

Most people think the weekends are for getting pissed [I apologise for the language]. The majority of us go out there just to get steamed and locked. That is what weekends are for.