Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am a bit mystified by section 11(1)(b), which proposes to make it an offence for a person to "import, for sale in the State" an alcohol product if its container does not bear a warning in the prescribed form. How is that going to work out? I do not think it has been thought through. If it is an offence to bring into this State a product that does not bear this warning, people outside the State will have to attach Irish warnings to bottles and cans, etc., before they come into this State. With respect, that is a bit crazy. We cannot ask a vineyard in France to label everything in the Irish version. We have not yet got to the Irish language, which is another day's work. We cannot make it an offence for somebody to import a product in these circumstances. Surely we should require the label that will be prescribed by the Minister to be attached to the bottle or can after it has come into the State. It cannot be right that a French brewery, vineyard or spirit manufacturer will have to stick an Irish label, as decided by a Minister in Ireland, onto a product before it arrives into Dublin Port. We cannot possibly say that it will have to be done in France. I imagine that such a requirement would be a huge problem under European law. Therefore, I suggest that there is a flaw in the drafting of this section.