I am delighted to welcome this Bill. For long months I have raised the issue of under-age drinking and the associated public order problems at the Committee on Health and Children and at parliamentary party meetings. I did this as it is such an important issue for the towns and villages in my constituency of Donegal North-East.
This Bill is another step on the right road, but it will not be, as many have said, a panacea to all ills in society, nor is it intended to be. Alcohol related and public order offences top the agenda at most of our clinics and are uppermost in our minds and I wish the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform well in dealing with the wider implications of drink for our society. This is not a criticism of the Bill, but seeks to provide food for thought in terms of forthcoming legislation. Deputy O'Donoghue set up the committee on liquor licensing and the recommendations of the task force pointed to the key issue which is the number of Departments involved, including Health and Children, Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Education and Science, Finance, Arts, Sport and Tourism, Social and Family Affairs and the Environment and Local Government. I congratulate the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin, for the expansion in the remit of the task force and for the fact that we have the interim report of May 2002. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform must be proactive on the recommendations of the group and ensure interdepartmental development of what is possibly the largest single issue we face in these new years of the millennium.
Indeed, when I sat down to put my thoughts on the issue of public order on paper, I almost felt like a spoilsport because our culture is so drink orientated that it is not trendy to denounce it. I wonder sometimes if we prefer the view of us from the days of poitín drinking and leprechauns, which was that of the Americans and others, or if we prefer the real view. I speak as someone who takes a drink, usually in moderation, yet I see what is going on particularly with our youth in terms of drinking. Ireland has, as Deputy Higgins said, the fastest growing economy in Europe and the prosperity that has yielded has reached into and become part of the lives of our youth. Their disposable incomes are manifested in the weekly show of prosperity on our streets. It is not all good news and the cost to our economy of the abuse of alcohol is reckoned to be in the region of €2.4 billion, comprising €279 million in health care costs, €215 million in road accident costs, €100 million in alcohol related crime, €1,034 mill ion on loss of output due to alcohol related absences from work, €404 million in alcohol related transfer payments and €234 million in taxes not received on lost output. It would be ironic if the social face of our prosperity, the importance of the pub, became implicated in the loss of our prosperity due to the costs which I have just mentioned.
During the recent election, I listened again to concerned parents who worry that their children are not coming home until 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. They are concerned that their children do not feel safe on the street as they make their way home from a night out, they bemoan the fact that the streets of rural areas are no longer safe and they feel harassed in their homes when their property is vandalised. The answer provided is always the easy one of suggesting the pubs be closed earlier, but is that really what should happen? Perhaps it is part of the solution. Too often in the blame game it is everyone else's fault, not our own. It is the fault of the child, the publican, the Garda, the parents or the teachers, even of society, but never ours. It is never something quantifiable. What is quantifiable is the scale of the problem facing us.
Let us look at the children and their place in this issue of public order. According to the survey "Health Behaviour in School Age Children", over half of young people begin experimenting with alcohol before they are 12, 20% of 12 to 14 year olds are drinkers and between the ages of 15 and 16 half of girls and two thirds of boys are drinkers. Some drink very large quantities of alcohol, engage in binge drinking and are frequently drunk. The peer pressure on our youth is immense. Nationally, our society celebrates success or consoles itself with alcohol, our reputation world wide still revolves around our drink culture and, despite its wonderful performance, the recent fortunes of the Irish soccer team provide a classic example. We celebrated with alcohol when we won and consoled ourselves when we lost. Our heroic ability to consume alcohol is what is admired around the world. Many young people are getting drink from a variety of sources, including pubs, off-licences, parents, relations, friends or from the cabinet at home. They drink in more and more public places as time goes on. They drink to excess and often become violent.
There is no logic in the manner in which many young people drink in that they mix their drinks and have nasty reactions as a result, which translates into increases in assaults. There has been a steady increase in assaults and public order offences since 1995 and from 1996 to 2000 street violence offences increased by 97%. The Garda Commissioner highlighted the link between alcohol and the rise in street violence. In 2000 there were 62,000 instances of public order offences and 38,000 people were charged and 24,000 cautioned. It is awful that serious assaults increased in 2000 and the fact that most of them were alcohol related gives us pause for thought. Alcohol related offences might be committed by adults, but there is concern that the intoxication in public among teenagers has increased by 370% since 1996. Much of this goes unseen due to the JLO system and I ask the Minister to look at that system in terms of the discretion of local gardaí. They have no discretion to intervene and recommend a prosecution of an individual and in many cases the really serious juvenile offender is laughing at the system when they are referred to JLO which they know is soft. JLO works extremely well for the soft criminal who just needs a good sharp shock, but I ask that the Minister look at it possibly to allow a local sergeant, inspector or superintendent to have some input into whether a person should be prosecuted.
I hear people saying that young people have nothing else to do and they speak of the need for sports facilities, with which I agree in part, but I watch reality. I see the impact over the last few years of the national lottery moneys and the associated facilities which have been made available, but they are not utilised by those who would prefer to be in a back alley or on the shorefront with a six pack. Last week when the Irish team was going to play at 12.30 p.m. I was walking along the shore and trying to get back in time for the match while half a dozen young fellows were just arriving down with their six pack of cider, their Smirnoff Ice and their Hooch ready for their session. Even though there was something sporting on television and they all had access to sports viewing, they were not going to be there, they were going to be antisocially "enjoying" themselves. That is not to say that we cannot encourage more drop-in centres such as the one in Buncrana or the after-school and homework clubs operating in many towns, but the Minister should speak to his relevant colleague in relation to a national insurance scheme which must be created to address and overcome the problems for parks, playgrounds and skateboard facilities about which Deputy Higgins spoke.
Young adults in the 18 to 24 year age group are the most directly affected by the issue of binge drinking. This and the younger age groups may live through the consequences of the less exciting part of alcohol consumption which is unwanted pregnancy. Of school going teenagers surveyed, 35% who were sexually active said that alcohol played a significant part in leading to them becoming so. Other problems include sexually transmitted infections, increasing disharmony in family relations, marriage break-ups, depression often leading to suicide, health problems such as sclerosis of the liver and various cancers, which like smoking related diseases make no impact on a young generation because they often take years to manifest themselves, accidents in the house and car accidents.
I ask that the Minister, the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, the Garda and local authorities discuss what is to be done with the burnt-out cars that are so prevalent around our countryside due to youngsters gaining access to old cars which have perhaps failed the MOT and are joyridden before being abandoned and burnt out.
When public order is raised with us as politicians, often the Garda gets the brunt of the blame, rightly or wrongly. The last Government increased the number of gardaí and there is a commitment to again increase their numbers significantly this term, which I welcome, but there needs to be an examination of how they are deployed. I disagree with Deputy Higgins about whether it is a numbers game. How can we have a visible Garda presence on our streets and towns if there are only one or two on duty at any time? Gardaí on the beat pick up information and are a visual deterrent to people who may think twice in the presence of authority, which goes back to my JLO argument. Some people will not be deterred by a garda – I was told of a recent incident where a person went up to a garda and took his cap – but others will be deterred from soft crime. However, I agree with speakers last night who raised the issue of many young people not having respect for authority, which means gardaí will be faced with very difficult problems on our streets unless they have the proper numbers and back-up facilities.
Many young people do not have respect for authority. Therefore, gardaí are faced with difficulties on our streets, unless they are given adequate resources and supports. The number of gardaí on duty on my peninsula at weekends is in single figures. That may be okay for a rural location, but the Inishowen Peninsula is not such a location. It has a population of 30,000, which increases dramatically at weekends because it is a social outlet for Derry, capital of the north west. Given the advent of a ferry service across Lough Foyle recently, the peninsula's role as a suburb of the large urban centres in the north west is even more marked. I ask the new Minister to examine policing in County Donegal together with the Garda hierarchy and collate figures which take into account that 70 miles of east Donegal runs along the Border while 140 miles of west Donegal runs along the Atlantic Ocean with less than seven miles of the county bordering the Republic.
I am concerned about public order because every week I receive an increasing number of complaints from individuals along the Border whose houses or businesses have been raided, often in smash and grab raids by gangs from the North. I commend the Garda's work in conjunction with the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which has resulted in arrests and the return of goods. However, I ask the Minister to examine the duty rosters of Garda stations in Inishowen at weekends and respond regarding how effective gardaí can be and how the community can feel safe given the current level of Garda support. The official reply to this question in the past is that per head of population Inishowen has more gardaí than it deserves, but the area is a suburb of many large urban centres and is not the rural backwater that some people think.
Public order problems are not unique to my constituency. There is a growing problem of drunken children taking over the streets and green areas of our towns. In the past 16 to 18 year olds engaged in under age drinking. Subsequently, 14 to 16 year olds became involved, but nowadays ten to 14 year olds are causing most grief as a result of drinking. A small percentage of our youth cause major problems for their peers, parents and the elderly. A number of gardaí believe parents do not care. When they pick up these juveniles for public order offences and take them home they are abused while the child is not chastised. This leads to the more important question of parental control and responsibility. When the Children Act, 2001, is fully implemented will it address the issue of reduced parental control which we are experiencing as a society?
I am often asked whether a system should be implemented under which the Garda would be provided with sufficient paddywagons to pick up young offenders, bring them back to stations and hold them until their parents arrive to collect them. Gardaí believe many parents would not bother to do so, but a charge could be imposed to cover the cost of keeping these juveniles. Deputy Joe Higgins would be very irate at this concept. Many Garda stations are not big enough to hold numerous offenders. Perhaps the Minister could review the progress of the Garda station building programme.
Deputy Higgins is correct, however, that research must be carried out to examine the problems underlying the reasons these children are drinking to excess in order that we do not resort to the easy solution, which is to lock them up and throw away the key or use stun guns. We are too used to adopting the easy solution. The Garda's frustrations are understandable when one considers the force does not have enough manpower, patrol cars or basic resources in stations and it often does not receive support from parents. A number of gardaí have been reported as saying they have no legislation to assist them to deal with young people causing public order difficulties, but that is not the case and resources will be put in place to implement the legislation fully.
I am most concerned about this issue. I do not want to contribute to a debate on legislation and be party to putting more paper into a system if it is not workable. I, therefore, ask the Minister to ensure the necessary resources are put in place to ensure the legislation can be fully enacted in order that it will not be something to which we can point and say it is in place if only the Garda is prepared to implement it.
Should parents be assisted to educate children about responsible drinking? I have spoken to a number of experts who deal with alcoholics and people involved with Alcoholics Anonymous and I am concerned to find that the average age of an alcoholic is reducing significantly. What used to be a phenomenon among 40 to 60 year olds has become a phenomenon among 25 to 35 year olds. This is a serious problem which must be tackled on a cross-departmental basis. This issue is not solely the responsibility of the Minister.
I commend the drinks industry on doing a great job. Guinness hijacked the Irish flag during the World Cup, but it is not an offence because the company used replicas. However, Guinness made the national flag part of its sales and advertising campaign which was wrong.