Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

I tend to agree with the Senator on that score. In my constituency of Dún Laoghaire, the Garda has been good at tackling gangs of kids with slabs of beer in the park during the summer months. Gardaí, community gardaí in particular, have worked well, not to ram the law down people's throats but in cases in which they see a propensity for abuse of alcohol they do something meaningful about it.

The issue of supermarket multiples and low-cost selling must be reconsidered. Germany, for example, has a so-called apple juice law, which in essence states that alcohol cannot be sold more cheaply than a soft drink or beverage. This helps to encourage people, both in licensed premises and elsewhere, to choose a non-alcoholic alternative. Such good examples can be examined and certainly there is much best practice abroad that bears re-examination in the context of Irish deliberations on how to tackle alcohol misuse.