Catherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

She was extremely brave in the face of negativity and had to put up with difficult personal stuff. I witnessed it and did not approve of it. It was not on. The reality is it takes a bit of bravery and courage on occasion. I am glad the Minister has the courage of his convictions to see this through. I am grateful for that because health is wealth. That expression is a cliché but it makes sense. If we have our health, we have our wealth. We talk about fiscal space but we will have an awful lot more fiscal space if we deal with our problem with alcohol. My aunt has been in the emergency department in Galway for 24 hours. She is very ill. I have not had a chance to speak to her this afternoon. However, we can be damn sure many of those delays are created by alcohol-related illnesses which my aunt does not have. People going to emergency departments should be seen sooner. We should face up to the reality that we have problems when it comes to alcohol. It is causing cancer and many other illnesses. We could spend hours in here talking about it. I do not have the medical expertise to go into it all.

I will finish on this point and I am sorry to be long-winded. I know I am repeating some of the points that were made. The health and vitality of our children is of importance to everything in their lives. If they start drinking in their teens some might get away with it and will turn out to be fine adults. However, as a result of that exposure to alcohol at a young age, many will have different lives. I will repeat, probably for the third time, that this is not a panacea but it will help in this area. I thank the officials who have worked so hard on this. It is really technical and difficult work. I thank the Minister. I am grateful that we in Fine Gael are leading on this. I am just so happy about that.