Joe O'Toole (Independent)

The station carried a clip of the President of the United States stating that he was rushing to support two American Senators who will publish legislation to correct what the Supreme Court found wrong. Good luck to them if they can correct the Geneva Convention.

I have received a number of communications from the former president of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland, Pat Cahill. Throughout his term as president he was concerned about the consumption of drink and drugs by young people. He has continued that work and he has written to me to indicate that the view emerging from the studies he is conducting is that there is a direct link between drink and drug usage. In many cases, alcohol is the gateway to drugs usage. This is something we have not discussed previously.

In light of the fact that the Irish Medical Organisation, among others, has called for the prohibition of alcohol advertising and given that we have been successful in making tobacco uncool, we should invite the Minister for Education and Science to the House to listen to the views of people who are dealing with young people and to discuss how we can make binge drinking uncool. This is another issue we might discuss in the autumn. We are entitled to do so because this is an issue which the Leader has put on the agenda on a number of occasions over the last year and which has been raised by Senator Ormonde and others. The Members of the House have views on this matter and should be allowed to discuss how and to what extent we can control the advertising of alcohol.

A former Member of the House, Maurice Manning, recently published a report on behalf of the Irish Haemochromotosis Association which contained a series of recommendations on screening people for this condition, which is quite debilitating. I would welcome an opportunity to discuss this report and to hear the views of the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children on the implementation of the report's recommendations. The group that compiled the report was, in fact, set up by the Tánaiste.