Colette Kelleher (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Legacy is important. I appreciate that the Minister is engaging with shopkeepers and I know first hand his track record for engagement having worked with him on another matter last year. In his discussions on structural separation between now and Report Stage, in addition to the shopkeepers I ask the Minister to bear in mind certain people and to speak to them or to their representatives if he cannot speak to them directly.I think of the children I worked with who were born with foetal alcohol syndrome. I bear those images very strongly in my head and heart. I ask the Minister to bear in mind the family of the young man who disappeared on new year's day after a party the night before. He was taken from the River Lee weeks later, after weeks of terrible searches. I think of the hundreds of lovely people I worked with while I was in Cork Simon Community for eight years who were ravaged by the effects of alcohol. Some of those people started life the same way those children experiencing foetal alcohol syndrome did. I also think of the people there who were trying desperately to recover. The Minister should bear those people in mind. I think of the members of my own family. If we are truthful, we all have alcoholism in our families and among our friends. By all means, the Minister should talk to the shopkeepers. I come from a long line of shopkeepers. I have family still running the kind of small shops the Minister is talking about. I think of my dad when he was running a butcher's shop back in the days before refrigeration. I do not know how we did it but we did. When refrigeration came in, my father had to adapt. Senator Kieran O'Donnell is correct, in that small shopkeepers are very adaptable and resilient and will adapt to the sensible measures that will be introduced. The Minister should bear in mind what is at the core of what he is trying to do, which is public health. He should hold those people in his mind during his deliberations and hold his nerve.