David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I strongly support minimum alcohol pricing. I know it has been resisted, but it is extremely important. I live in a small privileged enclave in the poorest area of the city of Dublin. I see people going to the supermarket and buying slabs of beer for ridiculously low prices. It is completely outrageous. As I said earlier, the idea of grocery shops and supermarkets selling alcohol is nonsense, but I suppose that is another day's work. I strongly support minimum pricing. The alcohol industry throughout the world has a record of opposing this. Some years ago when the Scottish Parliament introduced minimum pricing in Scotland, the Scotch Whisky Association took the Scottish Administration to court. The ruling from the senior Scottish courts was that minimum pricing of alcohol was a perfectly legitimate tool of government for social reform. That is an important precedent for us to bear in mind.

The specific amendment on gathering information from health services and so forth is very important. This is a report from the coalface.This is where the people who are actually afflicted by alcohol come to the health services and make presentations. We need to know the nature of those presentations, the frequency and the number of people who are involved in this. Every scrap of information made available to the Minister is valuable and useful so I strongly support this amendment.