JOINT COMMITTEE ON HEALTH AND CHILDREN debate -
Thursday, 10 Nov 2011

Alcohol Marketing: Discussion (Resumed)

Chairman

I welcome our visitors. Representing the Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland we have Ms Kathryn D'Arcy. We also have Ms Rosemary Garth, director of corporate affairs at Irish Distillers; Mr. Gerry Mellett and Mr. Pádraig Cribben, chief executive, from the Vintners Federation of Ireland; and Ms Fiona Ryan, director, Alcohol Action Ireland. I have met Dr. Bobby Smith before and he is also welcome. This is part of a series of meetings on the topic of alcohol marketing, with particular reference to minimum pricing and the targeting of young people, in particular.

Witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they give to this committee. If they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they do not criticise or make charges against a person or persons or an entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they do not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I apologise to our guests for the delay, but there were a number of votes in the Seanad and we had some private business to deal with. I ask Ms D'Arcy to make her opening remarks.

Ms Kathryn D’Arcy

The Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland, ABFI, welcomes the opportunity to present to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children. We strongly believe in the concept of partnership between the industry and the Government in addressing the very serious and complicated issue of alcohol misuse and that this presentation forms part of such a partnership. The ABFI is the umbrella organisation for drinks industry manufacturers and suppliers in Ireland, from large global organisations to smaller domestic producers. It works to promote and support an environment in which the sustainable and responsible development of the alcohol beverage sector is encouraged.

It is important to note that we are making this presentation against a backdrop of falling alcohol consumption in Ireland. Alcohol consumption has fallen by approximately 21% since 2001 when it reached its peak. It fell steadily until 2006 and then rapidly in 2008 and 2009. Whereas there was a slight increase in 2010 owing, in the main, to the repatriation of alcohol sales from Northern Ireland, revenue figures indicate consumption has fallen again in 2011. We are now consuming alcohol at a level similar to that in the mid-1990s.

The alcohol sector is a major national industry which provides over 60,000 direct and indirect jobs, generates €2 billion in excise duties and VAT and provides some of Ireland's most successful international exports. We recognise that with great success comes great responsibility. While the vast majority of people drink alcohol responsibly, we acknowledge that alcohol misuse is a serious issue in Ireland. It is in nobody's interest that alcohol misuse, in particular among minors, remains untackled. It is important to note that, as a representative body for manufacturers and suppliers, the ABFI does not have a direct role in the sale of alcohol or the setting of prices for consumers. However, we do have a direct role in the marketing, advertising and promotion of alcohol and go to great lengths to ensure we do so in an appropriate manner and limit the exposure of young people to alcohol advertising. The ABFI is totally opposed to under-age drinking and the misuse of alcohol associated with it. We take our responsibilities in this regard very seriously and believe in adopting a co-ordinated approach to tackling under-age consumption.

Before we discuss in detail the very strict marketing and advertising codes of practice, I will share with the committee some measures we support which merit further detailed discussion in addressing under-age drinking: the introduction of a mandatory national identity card; the provision of more and better facilities to offer alternatives to young people; test purchasing by minors in outlets suspected of flouting the law; and increased enforcement to prevent purchases by minors using distance sales or on-line purchases. Ultimately, responsibility for alcohol consumption lies with the individual and, in the case of children, their parents or guardians. Information and education can play an important role in providing the skills for responsible decision making about drinking. The ABFI believes parents should be provided with educational material on how and what to communicate to their children, depending on age and gender.

The drinks industry supports the drinkaware.ie initiative. Support valued at €20 million was committed by the industry over a five year period, from 2006 to 2011, and the industry has committed to supporting the initiative beyond this timeframe. Through implementation of an innovative communications strategy, drinkaware.ie has managed to successfully engage young Irish adults and made tangible and measurable progress in challenging anti-social drinking behaviour.

Alcohol is a legal licensed product which, when consumed in a responsible manner, can be part of a healthy lifestyle. We recognise that the drinks sector has an important role to play in helping to address alcohol misuse and under-age drinking. It is, therefore, fully committed to responsible marketing through the implementation of effective and comprehensive industry-wide co-regulatory codes, the aim of which is to ensure the content of our advertising does not overtly appeal to children or encourage misuse.

In a mature market such as Ireland advertising and marketing have very limited ability to increase overall demand. The primary impact and intent of alcohol marketing is to maintain and increase one's brand share at the expense of other brands. It might interest the committee to know that even though beer is the most advertised alcohol beverage, its market share has fallen in the last 15 years. Wine, on the other hand, is the least advertised beverage, but its market share has increased.

In producing advertisements and campaigns we do so with the responsible message foremost in our minds. We abide by the spirit and the letter of these codes. To do otherwise would result in damage to our reputation and brands, as well as resulting in the industry losing its ability to advertise and market its products. The codes which regulate the volume of alcohol advertising were drawn up in 2002 by the Department of Health, the brand owners and others involved in alcohol advertising and strengthened in 2008. They are among the strictest and most comprehensive in the world. The following are just some examples of the restrictions that apply. No alcohol advertising can appear in any medium where more than 25% of the audience profile are under 18 years. Advertising is restricted to a maximum of one in four of the total space available in all media. There can be no alcohol advertising during family breakfast time and no advertising can be placed within 100 m of a school or youth group.

As regards content, the alcohol sector subscribes to the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland, ASAI, and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, codes which govern the content of all advertising. The ASAI standards have a specific chapter on alcohol and specify, among other things, that no alcohol advertising can appeal to young people and it cannot feature anyone who is orlooks under 25 years of age; no alcohol advertisement can associate its consumption with social or sexual success and it cannotfeature sports with driving or aggression.

In addition, the alcohol sector is unique in Ireland in submitting all its advertisements for all media forms to an independent vetting process managed by Central Copy Clearance Ireland, CCCI. This body ensures all alcohol advertising complies with the highest standards set out in both the ASAI and BAI codes. It is worth noting that in terms of the broadcast media, many of the non-Irish channels are part of this process on a voluntary basis, something which could not have been achieved by legislation alone. The Department of Health also plays an important monitoring role in respect of alcohol advertising though its involvement in the Alcohol Marketing Communications Monitoring Body, AMCMBEach year this body independently monitors the compliance by the alcohol sector with the codes and sends a report to the Minister for Health. This year, as in other years, the board concluded that the drinks sector had achieved "overall compliance" with the codes.

I will address the issue of minimum pricing. I understand the retail price of alcohol is a source of concern for many. However, it is overly simplistic to cite price as the key driver of alcohol misuse. According to many studies, a young person's attitude to alcohol is formed by his or her peers, parents and culture rather than price alone. According to a EUROSTAT report in June this year, alcohol prices in Ireland were the highest in the European Union, as a result, in its opinion, of high taxes. In addition, a review of excise rates in the European Union this year shows that Ireland is one of four countries in which alcohol taxes are significantly higher than in the rest of the Union. If high taxes were an appropriate tool to address the issue of alcohol misuse, in particular among minors, Ireland would have cracked this problem a long time ago. Raising taxes would simply drive consumers across the Border to the North, with the resulting loss of revenue to the State and without addressing the issue of alcohol misuse.

As suppliers, we do not set the retail price. That is the role of retailers. Just as we cannot tell publicans the price at which they should sell their products in bars and pubs under competition rules, we cannot tell retailers the price at which they should sell our products in their shops. That said, we, like many others, have an opinion on the matter. In 2005 the drinks industry vocally opposed the decision taken by the then Government to abolish the ban on below cost selling in the grocery sector. We recommended at the time that an exception be made for alcohol, as it was our belief such a move would lead to alcohol being used as a loss leader to drive greater footfall.

The issue of minimum pricing for alcohol has been raised by some as a way to address this deep discounting. However, as the Minister of State, Deputy Róisín Shortall, recently pointed out at this committee, there is a need to fully understand the legal issues surrounding the introduction of a minimum price for alcohol. The European Commission has noted that setting a minimum price could be contrary to the EU internal market rules. Rather than go through a costly legal battle with the Commission, which other countries might be prepared to do, the ABFI urges the committee to first investigate all legal issues surrounding minimum pricing for alcohol prior to recommending its introduction. On the other hand, we believe the reintroduction of the ban on below cost selling merits consideration in an effort to curb the deep discounting of alcohol in retail outlets. It worked previously and was never considered illegal. We accept that there are issues relating to the definition of cost and the implementation and policing of such a measure, but we argue that if there is the will to address the low retail price of alcohol, the means of effective implementation, definitions and policing can be found.

The ABFI believes the only way we can address the serious issue of alcohol misuse among young people is through adopting a collective, proactive and partnership approach.

Chairman

That was an interesting presentation. I welcome Mr. Gerry Mellett, president, and Mr. Pádraig Cribben, chief executive, of the Vintners Federation of Ireland. I invite them to make their presentation.

Mr. Pádraig Cribben

We appreciate the opportunity to express our views on the relevant issues. Ours is a trade association which represents the interests of publicans in the 25 counties outside Dublin.

Independent research carried out at the end of 2009 by Amárach Consulting on behalf of the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland, DIGI, shows some startling statistics for the pub trade. A total of 96% of all pubs in the geographical area we represent are family owned businesses, of which 57% have a turnover of less than €200,000 per annum. A total of 83% have a turnover of less than €400,000 per annum. Since these figures were compiled at the end of 2009, sales of alcohol in pubs have fallen by 15%; therefore, the numbers in these categories will have risen substantially. The pub business is a family owned, relatively low turnover one.

Six years ago the breakdown of alcohol consumption in Ireland was 70% in the on-trade, pubs, and 30% in the off-trade, supermarkets and off-licences. Today the breakdown is 45% and 55%. There are many reasons for this, including lifestyle changes, legislation directed at the on-trade, general economic circumstances and disposable income. The single biggest factor, however, was the abolition of the groceries order that allowed supermarkets, in particular, to sell alcohol at prices at which publicans could not dream of buying it. The consequences of this change are wide and varied. Many pubs have gone out of business, with consequences for families, communities and employees. It is estimated that there are six jobs in the on-trade for every job in the off-trade. There has been a loss of 30,000 jobs in the drinks sector in the past five years. We have all seen the headlines in respect of the recent unfortunate cases involving job losses in other sectors. The job losses in our sector have not received the same headlines because they have been in twos and threes, but they still have a significant effect on certain parts of the community. To put the matter in perspective, the job losses in our business in the last five years are the equivalent of 60 TalkTalks or 30 Avivas and we know the level of attention they have received.

The Minister of State, Deputy Shortall, said recently she hoped the introduction of a minimum price would not have a negative effect on jobs. One can only assume there has been lobbying and spin by the multiple trade that such a move would affect the number of jobs in the sector. The Minister of State need have no fears that there will be a positive effect on jobs. We are often blinded by the announcement of X number of jobs when a major supermarket opens with great fanfare. We do not see, however, the job losses caused by such openings. Recent studies by Professor Martin Carragher of City University in London show that for every job created in such a venture, 1.5 jobs are lost in the local community. The jobs created are generally part-time, while those that are lost are generally full-time.

Tourism will be a major driver of economic recovery, as has been accepted by the Government. Successive studies and research have shown the pub to be a key provider for tourists in terms of entertainment, food, sporting occasions and meeting other needs. The more pubs that close, the greater the deficit will be for tourists, both international and domestic.

There are other consequences of the change in drinking habits and the migration from the pub to the off-trade and drinking at home in the past five years. Many have been highlighted by other organisations, but they might have significant consequences, not least among them the implications for health, domestic stability and family life.

The concept of pre-loading has become prevalent. For the uninitiated, pre-loading is where patrons consume significant amounts of alcohol before they leave home, before heading to a pub or a nightclub. Within a short time, they are at a stage where they need not be. This pre-loading creates particular difficulties for publicans because an individual who seems fine on entry to the licensed premises may soon become a problem customer. Often there are subsequent public order problems that tend to be attributed to the licensed trade but which are really caused by overloading before arriving at a premises.

When consideration was being given to the repeal of the groceries order, numerous representations were made to the then Government to exclude alcohol from its considerations. The consequences that have ensued from that decision were pointed to in advance but ignored. What have the supermarkets done? They are using alcohol as a loss leader and footfall driver. Recent studies in Britain have shown that the figure for alcohol sales is about 4% in Britain - it is about 3% here - but they account for about 40% of footfall. There was a recent offer in Dunnes Stores when a bottle of Smirnoff was available for €15. The combined VAT and excise take on that bottle is €10.77, leaving only €4.23 for the manufacture, distribution and marketing of the product. A similar offer in Tesco that appeared in a nice, glossy magazine directed towards children was 20 bottles of Miller for €15. Lidl advertises two bottles of wine for €5; the combined VAT and excise take on these bottles amounts to €4.54, leaving a total of €0.46 for their manufacture and distribution.

These are examples of the activity that takes place on a weekly basis. Suppliers will state more than 60% of alcohol sales in a supermarket are due to promotions; therefore, these are not one-off figures. This is trumpeted as being consumer friendly when it is the opposite. Why? Supermarkets in Ireland enjoy some of the highest margins in Europe. The price of more staple goods is increased to compensate for the use of alcohol as a footfall driver. In addition, where a supermarket sells at a certain level below the invoice cost price, effectively there is a VAT rebate, as the VAT on the purchase price will be lower than that on the selling price. In effect, the State is subsidising some of the cheap alcohol prices on offer in supermarkets.

What must be done to address this issue? There must be a minimum price for alcohol based on the alcohol content of the product. Outlawing certain promotional tools such as three for the price of two is no more than tinkering at the edges. We must ban all price-related advertising. This already occurs on television, but it must now be extended to the print media, online, outdoor and radio advertising. We need only look at the level of investment in such advertising. Any newspaper on a Sunday or a Thursday or flyer that comes through the door shows major investment and multiples are using alcohol centrally in advertising to drive footfall.

We must commence section 9 of the Intoxicating Liquor Act 2008 which calls for the sale of alcohol in mixed trading premises, in which alcohol and other products are sold under the same roof, to be segregated from the sale of food products. This was a recommendation made to the Minister for Justice and Equality by the Alcohol Advisory Council and included in the legislation but not commenced after intense lobbying by the mixed trading sector. Instead, we have a sham voluntary code under the RRAI, Responsible Retailing of Alcohol in Ireland. It is a sham for a simple reason. It was agreed to in 2008 as an alternative to segregation, but four words in the code render it meaningless. It calls for alcohol products to be segregated from other products "as far as possible". These four words are the get-out clause that allows alcohol to be sold unsegregated. They also allow the RRAI to report to the Minister a high level of compliance. If a store has all its refrigeration products in one area because that is the only area where they can be, it is also acceptable to have alcohol there if that is the only area where it can be. It could be argued that this is a type of seasonal code as one will see in the run up to Christmas that alcohol will be widely available across various sections of stores across the country. That same phenomenon happens in many stores at certain times, such as long weekends, St. Patrick's Day, Easter and so on. This charade needs to be stop and section 9 activated. When people go into stores they will see that all of the above is not a figment of the imagination, it is fact.

It has been mooted that the alternative solution to the issue of minimum pricing in an increase in excise. This does not work and will not work. If excise duty were the solution to our problem, we would have no problem as we have the third highest levels of excise on alcohol in Europe. It is not just that we are number 3, but with one or two other countries, we are in a league that is well ahead of the rest. Higher taxation will not force the multiple trade to increase prices. We have seen in the United Kingdom in the past two years, on the very day that excise duty was increased, the price of alcohol was brought down by the multiples. They were highly advertised as "budget bursting deals". Effectively they thumbed their nose at the authorities, and said they will do what they think is right.

The key is to tackle the problem with a focused approach, using what I term the rifle and not the shotgun. The rifle gets to the core of the problem, the shotgun sprays the pellets everywhere and gets nothing done. The answer is that the price and availability of cheap alcohol needs to be addressed urgently.

Let me finish by recalling a recent very tragic case, the father of a young man in Ballina spoke out when his son died by suicide after a very late night house party. After the inquest into his son's death, Mr. John Higgins said low priced alcohol is the main reason for house parties. He added that it does not take an awful lot of money to acquire a lot of drink and when one goes to a house party there is no barman standing there asking for orders - it is take what you want and drink what you want. There is no duty of care at house parties. Can one imagine going into a pub and the barman saying "Help yourself lads"? There were reports and more reports. It is time the reports stopped and the legislation is implemented. I do not know what legislation needs to be brought in but there is a need for a minimum price on alcohol. I leave members with Mr. John Higgins's words and ask them to take action to ensure we do not have a repeat of the sad situation, and more fathers having to face the reality of living without their loved ones.

I thank the Chairman and members of the committee.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Cribben for his thought-provoking presentation. I welcome Ms Fiona Ryan, director, Alcohol Action Ireland and Dr. Bobby Smith, a board member from Alcohol Action Ireland. Ms Ryan will make the presentation.

Ms Fiona Ryan

I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for inviting us to make a presentation. The last time I appeared before the committee was when I worked for the children's charity Barnardos. I am delighted to be back in the capacity of director of Alcohol Action Ireland, the national charity for alcohol related issues. We campaign to raise awareness of alcohol related issues and the harm associated with alcohol misuse and the policy solutions needed to remedy that harm. One of the categories we focus on is children and young people. We are particularly interested in the welfare and protection of children and young people at risk of harm through their own drinking or the drinking of others.

I am accompanied by Dr. Bobby Smith, who is a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, and a member of our board. He will speak on marketing. He is the lead author of the College of Psychiatry of Ireland's position paper calling for the ban on alcohol advertising and sponsorship. It is fair to say that Dr. Smith's position is unequivocal.

We have been invited here to discuss the issues of alcohol marketing and pricing. It is important for the committee to realise that while both issues might seem separate, for the drinks industry they are one and the same. When devising strategies to market an alcohol product, it involves a mix of what are termed the four Ps - product, price, place and promotion. When we talk about advertising and marketing, this is the promotion of alcohol products. We will also discuss the pricing of alcohol. Mr. Cribben in his presentation referred to the widespread availability of alcohol, which in the boom years increased by over 200%.

There is a wealth of scientific evidence to support the fact that alcohol marketing influences young people's behaviour and attitude to drink. The scientific group of the European Alcohol and Health Forum, which is effectively under the auspices of the European Commission's department of health, found that alcohol marketing increased the likelihood of young people who are not drinking starting to drink and those that are drinking, drinking more. That science group conducted a survey of systematic reviews of 13 longitudinal studies, which involved 38,000 young people between the ages of ten and 21 years. They were only able to examine a small proportion of the marketing promotion mix, which means that if they had more time and opportunity, they would have had a chance to look at other aspects of commercial advertising. It is safe to say they found a distinct likelihood of increasing alcohol consumption.

Last year, Alcohol Action Ireland commissioned a leading market research company to gauge young people's awareness of alcohol branding and marketing. The young people in question ranged in age from 16 to 21 years and the research found that five out of their ten favourite advertisements were alcohol advertisements indicating a high memory recall. That is not surprising because we know from other studies, not least from the National Youth Council of Ireland, that the alcohol industry employs tactics in advertising to appeal to young people, such as music, humour and so consequently when there is a high incidence of memory recall, one is talking about brand and the product being kept in mind.

The research also found that 39% of the people questioned owned an item of alcohol branded clothing - yet only 1% of them when asked thought this was a source of advertising. In spite of the fact that every time they look in the mirror wearing the clothing or turn up with their friends wearing it, they are effectively marketing a product. This is what we call to a certain extent - stealth marketing. In actual fact the marketing has become so ubiquitous that they fail to realise that it is going on around them. However, they are still being marketed it.

A statistic we would like to highlight is that of the 83% of 16 and 17 year olds who had a social networking page such as Bebo or Facebook, 30% of them had received an alcohol pop-up or quiz on that page. For those of us who are not the digital native generation, we are visitors, but for anyone with younger children or relatives, we know they live out a lot of their lives via Facebook or Bebo. This private space which they share with family or friends is being penetrated by commercial marketing activities on behalf of alcohol when they are 16 and 17 years old in the pre-legal drinking age. The minimum age to be on Facebook is 13 years. We could not survey under 16 year olds for legal reasons, we do not know what the penetration rate is there. We can, however, say what the penetration rate for those in the 16 to 17 year group is, 30% of this age cohort receive alcohol advertisements or pop-ups. Alcohol sponsorship of sports events in this country is worth around €75 million, actual paid for advertising is somewhere around €65 million to €69 million but these are the localised versions of globalised brands. I will give members some of the global figures because they are relevant in an Irish context. Effectively we get an edition of what happens globally. The alcohol marketing spend in the UK, which is our nearest neighbour, is closer to £800 million. It is estimated that a global giant like Heineken spends over €2 billion on marketing. Those of us who are concerned about public health have to ask ourselves what the purpose of such multi-million expenditure is. I suggest alcohol companies fundamentally want to sell more alcohol, increase shareholder profit and ensure new consumers develop a brand loyalty. The new consumers in question are generally young people. I remind the committee that although one has to be 18 before one is legally allowed to drink in Ireland, the equivalent age in other parts of Europe is 16. The adherence to the age limit of 18 depends on the country one is in. All marketers know it is easier to recruit new consumers than to get existing consumers to switch from one brand to another.

I would like to point out to those who believe the alcohol industry is not deliberately targeting young people of pre-legal drinking age that Professor Gerard Hastings of the University of Stirling, who has testified before a UK parliamentary committee like this one, found when he examined British advertising agencies that such an assumption is not always true. The reality is that marketing aimed at 18 year olds will spill over to 16 and 17 year olds. We do not put buckets on teenagers' heads before suddenly taking them off when they reach the age of 18. Marketing aimed at 18 year olds will have an impact on 16 and 17 year olds. Indeed, we should question whether it is acceptable for 18 year olds, even if they are of legal drinking age, to be exposed to and surrounded by the sound and vision of alcohol marketing 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The stated aim of our current codes, which were mentioned earlier, is to reduce the exposure of young people to alcohol marketing. We support this noble aim. However, no one has a baseline understanding of young people's awareness of or exposure to alcohol marketing. When one hears about compliance - I do not doubt that the terms of the codes are being complied with - the reference is to compliance with codes that cannot support their own stated aims. We have no idea what young people's awareness of, or exposure to, alcohol marketing is. When we talk about compliance, we have to consider what is being complied with.

The current codes allow alcohol to be advertised during programmes if not more than 25% of the viewership is under the age of 18. Children comprise a quarter of the population. Although I did pass maths for the leaving certificate, I can say that as 25% of the population are children, alcohol advertising can be broadcast at any time, with the exception of a defined breakfast period, as long as the 25% rule is followed. My colleague, Dr. Smith, will clarify later that errors in audience profiling mean the figure can be closer to 20%. Basically, there is a massive amount of leeway in terms of marketing to children. As Dr. Smith is more of an expert in this area - he must have done honours maths for his leaving certificate - he will talk about it.

The codes are woefully inadequate when it comes to dealing with digital marketing. We are keen to emphasise this area because the alcohol industry is pumping substantial marketing resources into it. It is a sort of wild west frontier when it comes to alcohol marketing and regulation. In order to show I am not inventing some kind of conspiracy theory, I would like to refer to a report in the Financial Times on the deal that Facebook recently announced with Diageo. I remind the committee that one can have a Facebook page when one is 13 years of age. The report stated that “Diageo has been using Facebook for advertising and promotions for more than a year and has found through Nielsen basket-scanning research that certain campaigns for brands including Smirnoff and Baileys boosted offline purchases by as much as 20 per cent in the US”.

The Financial Times report also quoted Diageo’s senior vice-president of global marketing and innovation as saying “Facebook are working with us to make sure that we are not only fan collecting but that they are actively engaged and driving advocacy for our brands” and “we are looking for increases in customer engagement and increases in sales and [market] share. I do not think we could have said it better ourselves. The Financial Times also reported that “Diageo has increased its budget for digital marketing by 50 per cent to just under 20 per cent of its total media spending”.

Heineken has also been busy on the technology front. It has signed a multi-million euro deal to enter into partnership with the search engine Google, which owns YouTube. According to another report in the Financial Times, "in exchange for committing to a minimum amount of advertising investment across Google's sites, Heineken will be given access to special consultancy, data and discounts from the search company". It is estimated that Heineken's annual marketing budget is €2.17 billion, with 4% or €87 million being spent on digital marketing. That figure is now likely to go up.

To say that our alcohol marketing codes are inadequate in dealing with digital marketing is to put it mildly. If we do not think about how we are going to tackle this area, we might as well be designing codes or regulations for advertising on transistor radios in the era of the iPad. The Government needs to accept its responsibility to introduce statutory regulations relating to advertising, alcohol placement and pricing. As I have said, we intend to initiate a discussion on pricing.

I have circulated Alcohol Action Ireland's pre-budget submission on pricing to the committee. We ask a very simple question on the front of the document - if one has a bottle of beer and a bottle of water, which is them is the cheapest? - and we provide a helpful hint to the effect that it is not always the water. The truth is that when one walks into a supermarket, one can buy alcohol for less than the price of a bottle of water or a bar of chocolate. We are talking about alcohol at pocket money prices. Alcohol is now so cheap that a woman can reach her low-risk, maximum weekly limit for €7 and a man can do so for €10. If one works for an hour on the minimum wage, one will receive €8.65. That one can buy one's weekly limit for such an amount explains why this country has an alcohol problem and how young people are accessing alcohol.

We accept that there are complex reasons for alcohol problems in our society. We argue that this complexity should not be a hindrance to tackling this issue. The World Health Organisation has conducted a comparative study of what has worked to reduce alcohol consumption and associated alcohol-related harm in various jurisdictions. It has found that pricing is the key strand in that context. If one wants to reduce consumption, one needs to tackle pricing. The WHO has also mentioned availability and alcohol marketing in this regard. Alcohol Action Ireland is not the only body that is making these points.

Alcohol-related harm costs this country €3.7 billion a year - €1.2 billion in health costs, €1.2 billion in criminal justice costs and €500 million in absenteeism costs. We are being asked to make austerity cuts of almost the same amount this year. The chief medical officer of Ireland has said that if we could reduce alcohol-related harm by 30%, we would save €1 billion and 30 lives a month. What could we do with that €1 billion? How many special needs posts could we save? How many front line services could we save? How many lives could we save? How many families could be spared heartbreak?

The committee will probably be told this morning that alcohol consumption is decreasing. I suggest we should take a wider look at the matter. Alcohol consumption peaked in the early part of the last decade because we had reached saturation levels, in effect. We could have been wrung out like a towel. The reality is that if one takes a longer-range view, one will learn that alcohol consumption in this country has doubled in the last 30 years. We now drink 11.9 litres of pure alcohol each year. That is the equivalent of 45 bottles of vodka or 125 bottles of wine. Given that 20% of people do not drink, it is clear that those who drink are actually drinking more.

If we were all drinking at our maximum low-risk weekly drinking limit, the annual pure alcohol consumption figure would be 8.8 litres. If we are all being really honest about drinking sensibly, someone else must be drinking the extra three litres. I say this as someone who drinks. The fact is that we are drinking more than we are admitting. The committee does not need to take my word for it. According to figures from the national drug treatment reporting system that were published yesterday, the number of treated cases of problematic alcohol use increased by 43% between 2005 and 2010. The committee is being told that alcohol consumption decreased during the same time. As I have said, it decreased from a record high.

Over 42,000 cases of problematic alcohol use were treated between 2005 and 2010. Half of the people in question had started to drink by the time they were 16. Half of them were aged 39 or younger. There was a 145% increase in new cases involving people under the age of 18. We are seeing alcoholic liver disease among people in their 20s. This used to be a disease of middle-aged people. When will we start having a grown-up conversation about what alcohol is doing to our population on an individual level, on a family level and on a community level? I have spoken to members of this committee and other Deputies who have said that half of their constituency calls relate to anti-social behaviour, much of which is fuelled by alcohol. When will we get real about this?

We need to consider why alcohol-related harm is increasing. When we talk about alcohol misuse in Ireland, there is a tendency to focus exclusively on young people as if they are the only people in the country who have any issues with alcohol, but that is not the case. Half of us are drinking at levels that are harmful to our health. Alcohol is relatively more affordable and available than it has ever been before.

I do not dispute that Ireland has among the highest rates of excise duty in Europe. However, this must be viewed in the context of affordability. The alcohol industry will argue that there are always complex causes, which is true. The RAND report prepared for the European Commission showed that alcohol in Ireland was 50% more affordable than it was 15 years ago. In other words, while the price may appear high in comparison to Spain, it has declined in the past 15 years as a proportion of income. We know from the Central Statistics Office that while prices in general are increasing, alcohol prices are in decline.

The age at which young people first drink alcohol has dropped from 16 years to 14 years in the space of a decade. The bottom line is that alcohol is for sale at pocket money prices. We have a perfect storm of widespread availability of cheap alcohol and, as young people tell us, they do not have any difficulty accessing it. While I am in favour of enforcement, it has not stopped young people buying alcohol. As anyone with children knows, the difference in age between the various members of a peer group is usually three or four years, which means that 15 year olds will hang around with 18 year olds who may legally buy crates of drink in an off-licence or supermarket. We know because we listen to what young people tell us that they do not have any problems legally accessing cheap alcohol. It has been calculated that a young person can get drunk, by which I mean "bombed", for €10. It is important to remember this when one considers that average pocket money for telephone credit and so forth is €16 per week. Young people can clearly afford to get drunk easily.

On the European Commission, the matter is not as simple as has been suggested. There is potentially a legislative basis to enforce public health legislation and we have been informed that this possibility is being actively pursued by the Scottish Government.

During the week, spokespersons for Alcohol Action Ireland appeared on radio with Mr. Higgins, to whom Mr. Cribben referred. Dr. Smith also appeared with Mr. Higgins on TV3 earlier today. We asked Mr. Higgins whether he had anything he would like to say to the joint committee. He asked Alcohol Action Ireland to deliver a statement, which I will cite in part. It reads:

Many factors played a part in David's death but cheap alcohol played a very large part. Alcohol can now be purchased for pocket money prices. For years we have heard our politicians promise to ban cheap alcohol but it is still on the shelves....

Alcohol is just so cheap. All I'm looking for is a little bit of honesty, to bring the price of alcohol up so that young people think twice about buying it in the quantities they're buying it. These people who are selling alcohol at this price - do they not realise what it is they are responsible for? Take the cheap drink off the shelves.

You cannot accept the revenue generated by alcohol with open arms and not accept responsibility for the heartbreak associated with the cheap alcohol. [By implication, this includes the Government]. The Government owes it to its citizens to protect them from this plague. We don't have living proof - our proof is dead.

Mr. Higgins also commented on the problem of trying to be a responsible parent but for reasons of time I will not elaborate on them.

Chairman

I thank all of our witnesses for their presentations. To respond to one of the points raised, we are having a grown-up conversation today. The joint committee takes this issue seriously which is the reason it has been made one of our priorities. As Members of the Oireachtas, we have a responsibility to legislate and the joint committee will produce a report and proposals on this matter. Ms Ryan is correct that this issue concerns the entire population, not only young people, as it relates to the way that we, as a nation, consume, use and misuse alcohol. We have had three strong presentations.

Deputy Billy Kelleher

I welcome our guests. While have been having mature debates about alcohol for many years, unfortunately we have not yet, as a society, been able to reach a consensus on how to deal with this escalating problem. Although figures show consumption of alcohol has reduced, the underlying trend is not positive from the perspective of Irish people addressing our difficulties with the consumption of alcohol.

One of our major concerns is the number of young people who are drinking regularly. All the statistics and evidence and virtually every survey show that this problem continues to grow. We have failed to confront and I do not know how we can do so. I do know, however, that in the context of pricing a public health measure has been taken to discourage smoking, namely, the decision to continually increase the price of cigarettes through excise and taxation. While statistics and reports suggest this measure has been effective, we have done exactly the opposite on alcohol. As Mr. Higgins, whose family suffered a tragedy, stated, alcohol is available for pocket money. People can buy 20 bottles of beer for less than €15 in multiples.

I do not care what legislation is in place to deter under-age purchasing of alcohol. It is unenforceable as a result of the interaction between the various age groups. An 18 year old can legally buy alcohol in an off-licence, go outside and give it to friends aged 15 or 16 years. Deterrence will not work when one has a combination of widespread availability and low prices. What can we do to address the problem? Drink is part and parcel of everyday culture in Ireland, for example, at family and sporting celebrations. As someone from Cork, I am used to regular sporting celebrations, although I am sure members from other counties also understand the problem. The consumption of alcohol as a central part of celebrations is not, in itself, a problem if it is done responsibly and in a mature and reasonable manner. The strong signals are that many young people are binge drinking every week. Statistics show that up to 20% of people aged between 16 and 18 years drink at least once a week and of this group, a significant element engage in binge drinking. Anti-social behaviour, sexually transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancies, mental health problems and suicide can be traced back, at least in part, to the consumption of alcohol.

We have heard that marketing and advertising are key factors in encouraging people to drink. There is no doubt that drinks companies invest heavily worldwide in marketing and profiling people to make their products attractive to young people. Online advertising and purchasing is also an issue. We face a major challenge but, more important, the immediate issue and the one on which the joint committee can act quickly and effectively is alcohol pricing. Addressing the broader issue through the introduction of advertising codes or measures to prevent or discourage the targeted marketing of people who are under age will be more difficult owing to the Internet and all that flows from it. Pricing and availability are two key issues the Government, society and the Oireachtas, through the joint committee, can address.

The multiples use alcohol products as loss leaders and all the supermarkets use them as a promotion tool. If one opens a newspaper mid-week, one will see advertisements in which alcohol is the key took used to persuade people to read the advertisement. While it may also feature a promotion for sausages, the primary focus of advertisements is alcohol. We should address this issue.

It is not my role to speak for vintners as they have a fairly powerful lobby which does so effectively on their behalf. Members have had clashes with vintners' representatives and I do not make any apologies for measures introduced while I was in Government, including reductions in drink driving limits. The pub trade is facing challenges. The key issue, therefore, is off-licences. If more people paid a certain price for a pint on licensed premises, alcohol consumption levels would decline, as would anti-social behaviour, and the current culture of large groups of youths drinking in public spaces or at home would be tackled. As I have suggested previously, perhaps the age at which alcohol can be purchased in off-licences should be increased from 18 to 21 years. That might break the link between the 18 year old purchasing and the 15 or 16 year olds consuming because they are of the same age cohort. If the age at which a person could purchase alcohol at an off-licence was raised to 21 years it might break that link in young people being able to access alcohol.

As a committee we must be forceful in addressing the issue of below cost selling, using it as a loss leader and its availability in every shop and supermarket across the country for small money. The whole issue of mental health and suicides, on which Mr. Higgins spoke passionately and shared the pain and anguish at his family loss, indicates that alcohol does lead to psychological difficulties for young people. We must give young people a chance in life.

I suggest the industry look at how it can reduce the price of alcohol. Some people speak about a minimum price for alcohol or below cost selling. I do not know what is the best way to do it. The EU may have a view on that issue and also in the context of a public health issue. We must be very forceful with the multiples and come down hard on one being able to walk out with a slab of 20 bottles, up on one's shoulder, for less than €15. That leads to huge difficulties. Within a matter of weeks of an off-licence opening in a community people will telephone my office, Deputy Buttimer's office and the office of every Deputy in their area to highlight the increase in anti-social behaviour, aggressiveness and young people congregating. We do not need any more surveys, we know what the problem is but we must deal it.

As a committee we should look at the off-licence as the key problem area and, particularly, the multiples who are promoting drink at prices that anybody can afford, which leads to problems and difficulties.

Chairman

On 1 December the National Off-Licence Association and Retail Ireland will appear before the committee.

Senator David Cullinane

I welcome all our guests and the three witnesses who made very good presentations. I agree strongly with many of the sentiments expressed and the recommendations made by Ms Fiona Ryan and Mr. Pádraig Cribben. In her presentation Ms Kathryn d'Arcy said no alcohol advertising can appeal to young people. Perhaps I can deal first with the issue of marketing and advertising of alcohol. The reason people in the alcohol industry market and advertise is to boost sales, encourage people to use their product, seek out new customers and target those who do not use their product. Hundreds of millions of euro is spent in the State every year on advertising by those in the alcohol industry because it boosts their sales. If it did not work they would not spend such huge amounts of their money on advertising. As Ms Fiona Ryan pointed out, there is also a reason for the use by Diageo of Facebook. It is where its new customers will be. I will not go over the ground covered by Ms Fiona Ryan, but she made a strong argument on the effects of alcohol advertising on young people and gave strong research-based evidence which I support.

Any research I have seen shows that if young people are asked what are their favourite advertisements, invariably it is Carlsberg and Heineken advertisements which target young people. It does not matter to me what anybody else says, we can see the impact it has and the research has been proven.

This debate is worthwhile because we have the witnesses appearing today but we have had a wealth of organisations appearing previously and others will appear. The committee is taking the issue seriously and, hopefully, we will be able to arrive at recommendations to deal with the issues.

I agree with Ms Fiona Ryan that we must confront this issue and recognise the social and economic consequences of what is happening with alcohol abuse in Ireland. She mentioned our experiences in constituencies. Senators do not have constituencies but we live in communities. At the last committee meeting I gave an example in Waterford of a number of housing estates, of which Deputy Conway will be aware, where there is a huge level of anti-social behaviour primarily from young people, who happen to be students, who buy alcohol at below cost prices and have caused devastation in a number of those housing estates.

At a recent meeting of the joint policing committee of Waterford City Council the Garda chief superintendent was concerned at the availability of cheap alcohol. As Mr. Pádraig Cribben said, there are now more house parties and a lack of responsibility on the part of some of those who host them. No duty of care is taken, all of which feeds into below cost selling of alcohol. I am a strong supporter of the State intervening in this area and dealing with the issue of the loss leader by the multiples who exploit the situation. The social consequences are clear.

I was presented with some figures from the north west alcohol forum. These show that one in every three child abuse cases in Ireland centres around alcohol, one in seven child welfare cases is alcohol related, 271,000 children under the age of 15 years are exposed to risk from parental drinking and 1.37 million adults are engaged in hazardous drinking on a regular basis. That is the reality of what is happening in Ireland. Others, in their presentations, have pointed out the social consequence of alcohol abuse in Ireland and the economic problem because it costs the State hundreds of millions of euro.

As has been pointed out we are looking at cuts that will impact on children who are being impacted already by alcohol abuse and we are going to impose further cuts on those same sectors. That does not make sense. There is an economic argument that underpins much of what has been said here today in trying to reduce alcohol dependency.

I am aware of a working group on sports partnership which is looking at the issue of sponsorship in this area. Has that group submitted its report? I understand it will make recommendations on phasing out alcohol sponsorship.

Chairman

It has not.

Senator David Cullinane

When that report is published I hope we can discuss its recommendations. Mr. Pádraig Cribben spoke about the voluntary code of practice. I ask the representatives to what extent has the voluntary code of practice on display and sale of alcohol products, especially in mixed trading premises, been complied with. We have got a response from Mr. Pádraig Cribben but I would like to hear from the other contributors.

Ms Kathryn D'Arcy made the point that if were to increases taxes on alcohol prices that would drive people across the Border. Initially contact was made with the former Minister for Health, Ms Margaret Richie, and then Mr. Alex Attwood, in regard to North-South initiatives so that those issues could be dealt with. I am sure the politicians, North and South, are worried about alcohol abuse. If measures were taken by the State, measures might also be taken in the North. I understand the current Minister for Health in the North, Nelson McCausland, has been in discussions with the Minister for Health here. There is much work that can be done to deal with that problem.

I warmly congratulate the witnesses. Many powerful arguments have been made which compel us as public representatives to act on these issues. I agree with the previous speaker, we have had many discussions over many years in this committee on the issue of alcohol abuse. Unfortunately, we have not taken the robust action we need to take. I hope, through these discussions we will arrive at a point where we can comprehensively deal with the issues.

Senator John Crown

I thank Senator van Turnhout for giving me the opportunity to speak. I welcome the delegates to the committee. We can talk around the edges of advertising law, but we have to get back to core reality. If we discovered alcohol for the first time tomorrow, would we legalise it? The answer is clearly "No". It would satisfy almost every criterion for a substance which would be banned. That is the reality. It is deeply a part of our culture. Unlike smoking, which should be addressed with an intermediate to long-term aim of banning the sale, manufacture and importation of cigarettes sometime within the next 15 years, one can make an argument that there is such a thing as responsible drinking, and that the practice itself need not be banned, but needs to be regulated in such a way that it minimises the extraordinary level of social harm which it can cause.

Let us do a mental checklist of what would happen if, for some reason, everybody in Ireland woke up tomorrow and gave up drinking completely. The following are the facts which would occur and I challenge anybody to tell me I am wrong on any of them. There would be fewer deaths on the roads. There would be fewer acts of violence. There would be less anti-social behaviour. The incidence of a number of common cancers would go down, including that of some cancers we did not realise were alcohol related until recently, such as breast cancer. The incidence of head and neck cancer, oesophagus cancer and pancreas cancer would all clearly go down if everybody just stopped drinking. There would be less obesity. As a result, there would be less diabetes and therefore less heart disease and fewer strokes. We often obscure those latter issues because we have discussed the possibility that perhaps a small amount of alcohol might be good for our circulation. However, the reality is that for the circulatory health of this country, it would be better if everybody stopped drinking.

Let us look at some other realities. We were led to believe that perhaps the problem is under control here and I was delighted to hear Ms Ryan correct that. The number of litres of alcohol consumed per capita in this country pretty much doubled over a 30 year period from 1970 until modern times. We were drinking one third the amount of alcohol per head of population as the French in 1970, but we are now drinking more. As a doctor and as an Irishman who spent much time outside the country, we were used to a certain amount of international ribbing about our drinking habits. I used always be able to say proudly, when I worked in the UK or in the US, that those countries had a higher incidence of liver disease than we had, and that the people of those countries drank more than we do. That was the case for many years, but it is not the case anymore. As a nation, as soon as we got a few bucks in our pocket, we spent it on booze. The rate of alcohol consumption in the country jumped up dramatically during the boom years. There are subtle reasons that alcohol consumption has gone down in recent years. It is probably got little to do with fewer drinks being taken, but in changes to the pattern of consumption and an increase in the consumption of wine, which went astronomically off the charts in Ireland during this time.

As a nation, we realise that we are doing something collectively that is bad. It is bad for us. I will not get into the argument about whether there is some benefit in truly controlled and responsible drinking habits. There may well be, but that has never been proven. It has definitely been proven that a number of proximate health and societal causes occur from drinking alcohol, and if we all stopped drinking, we would be better off.

There is a colossal opportunity cost of the money that we spend on alcohol not being spent on other things in our society. I am not referring to this in the collective, but in terms of families. The average family, which in straitened recessionary times has a limited amount of discretionary income and which continues to spend some of that income on alcohol which is bad for them, for their health and for society, is also constraining the amount of money which is available to them to spend on food and clothing for their children. The amount of time they spend drinking, planning drinking or recovering from drinking is time that could be spent doing better parenting. The arguments are overwhelming that we need to do something to reduce the total amount of drinking in our society and the total amount of money spent on alcohol in our society.

That is the fundamental tension we have with some of the delegates here today. I respect why they are here, but they basically represent an industry which wants to maintain its sales. The truth is that the greater social good dictates that we should try to make them fail. That is a nettle we must grasp.

If I may quote that wonderful Irish political movement which echoes around the world, "going forward", we have to make the decision today that we are going to fix this. The way we have to do it is to use all the limited tools at our disposal to change the things we can change, and to acknowledge the things we cannot, which is a saying I am borrowing from Alcoholics Anonymous. We probably cannot legislate a cultural difference in the short term, although I believe with a major educational effort, we can set the wheels rolling to do it. However, we can make it more difficult for people to get access to inappropriate amounts of alcohol and in inappropriate and uncontrolled surroundings.

I collected opinions from people all week about this on Twitter and these have influenced me. I started this week thinking I would come in here and recommend a ban on broadcast advertising, but I think we should just ban all advertising for alcohol. We should also ban all sponsorship by the alcohol industry of all events. If the alcohol industry has discretionary funds left which it wishes to put towards philanthropic goals like local sports clubs and so on, then that is great. We will gladly take its money, put it into a ring-fenced fund and dispense it for socially worthwhile causes with no acknowledgement that it originated in the alcohol industry.

We also need to consider changing the stick in the carrot and stick legislation so that the laws in respect of those who sell alcohol to under age citizens are put on a parity with the laws for selling illicit drugs, so that if somebody sells heroin, he or she will face the same penalties as those selling alcohol or causing, by commission or by neglect, alcohol to be provided to an under age person. It is that simple. That kind of stick will focus minds and will force the people who make money from alcohol sales to give a high priority to making sure that they do not get into trouble.

Senator van Turnhout has made some numbers available to me. The amount of money spent on alcohol advertising doubled between 2000 and 2007. The delegates before me are not dumb. They are not spending the money on advertising if they do not think it is doing something. That is the reality. They are not here to provide a philanthropic service to unemployed advertisers.

I would like each delegate to answer "Yes" or "No" to the following question. Do they believe that Ireland would be a better, healthier, safer country if there was a dramatic, collective decline in alcohol consumption here? I would like each delegate to answer that question one at a time.

Chairman

We will ask our visitors to reply to these opening remarks and we will then go back to other committee members who have questions.

Ms Kathryn D’Arcy

Deputy Kelleher asked about our views on raising the minimum age for purchasing alcohol in an off-licence to 21. There is merit in considering that. I accept the Deputy's point that there are 18 year old people who are friends with 17 and 16 year old people, so there is merit in looking at it. There may be constitutional issues, but if the committee is making recommendations, this should be considered.

I agree with the Deputy's point that we use alcohol when we are celebrating, but I do not see where the fault would be if we did it responsibly. The problem is when we celebrate irresponsibly with alcohol. There are many issues where I would agree with Ms Ryan and with many of the speakers in respect of our cultural attitude to alcohol. We have a problem with misuse. Alcohol consumption has increased since the 1970s and 1980s, but since the peak of 2011, we are going in the right direction. We need to continue that.

Senator Crown asked us to answer "Yes" or "No" to a question whether Ireland would be a better place if alcohol consumption fell. Yes, it would be a better place if people drank less and in a more responsible way. We have a particular problem with the pattern of our drinking. The latest figures I have for alcohol consumption in the OECD, for comparison purposes, are for 2009. The level of consumption in Ireland has gone down since, but in France it is higher than in Ireland. The difference is that French drinkers drink a little more over a longer period. In Ireland we seem to drink much of the alcohol we consume over the weekend. That issue needs to be addressed.

Reference was made to digital codes. The entire consumer industry is looking at more digital advertising, and the alcohol industry is no different. I will be upfront in that regard. Facebook is actually one of the safer areas in which to operate because there are strict rules about advertising. One cannot advertise an alcohol brand on the Facebook page of a member under 18 years and Face has the technology to ensure this happens. We have met with representatives of Facebook and I am sure they would be delighted to talk to the committee. Ms Ryan mentioned pop-ups and quizzes, about which I am not sure, but I have to admit I have not looked at them. However, alcohol advertisements cannot appear on a Facebook page if the member has indicated he or she is under 18 years of age.

Chairman

Can Facebook ensure this happens? Like Deputy Kelleher, I think it has abdicated that responsibility. There is no way of knowing a member's age.

Ms Kathryn D’Arcy

A Facebook member must enter his or her age on the page.

Chairman

One can give a false age.

Ms Kathryn D’Arcy

One can. We asked Facebook about that issue because we were also concerned about it. It stated it would be very unusual for someone to give a false age.

Chairman

It is misleading everyone if that is the case. I know it is not an issue for Ms D'Arcy, but this is one regarding social media which has not been tackled. Facebook is abdicating responsibility if it thinks that is the case.

Ms Kathryn D’Arcy

It takes the issue quite seriously. We have spoken to their global representatives here who look at Facebook pages all over the world. They have told us what they do if they find someone is lying about his or her age. It might be interesting to find out exactly what is the technology used.

Chairman

There is nothing to stop anyone creating multiple Facebook pages, provided one has separate e-mail addresses. One can lie about one's age.

Ms Kathryn D’Arcy

I totally accept that, but the Facebook representatives tell us that does not happen and that people want to be their true selves. A person would not join Facebook purely to access information on alcohol brands. Members join to make contact with their friends and tend not to think along the lines suggested by the Chairman. Some 80% of those who have a Facebook page are over 18 years. The fastest growing cohort of people with a Facebook page is females over 55 years. That is another important point to make.

Ms Ryan made an eloquent point about the use of digital advertising and the fact that it was very difficult to legislate for it. Digital advertising is a classic example of an area in which codes work. One cannot legislate for Internet or brand advertising. The alcohol industry takes the issue very seriously, although there are no specific codes. However, there are very broad codes when it comes to digital advertising and we have started to look at that space to make sure all of our companies are adhering to best practice.

Senator Cullinane mentioned the targeting of new drinkers. Alcohol companies spend considerable money on advertising. For us, it is a matter of taking a customer from one brand to another. We take the issue of under-age drinking seriously. We know that Members of the Oireachtas will take us to task if they find we are advertising to young people. Therefore, we take that role very seriously.

Senator Cullinane also spoke about restrictions in advertising, while Senator Crown commented on advertising and sponsorship. There is no silver bullet in this regard. I welcome Senator Cullinane's comments about the need for a cultural and educational change. That is a generational requirement - change could take a generation. It has taken us practically a generation to accept that drink driving is no longer acceptable and that people would be embarrassed and mortified if they were to be caught. We need the same cultural shift with regard to being drunk or intoxicated.

There are examples of restrictions in advertising. I am aware of two, but there may be others. In France there has been a restriction since the introduction of the Loi Évin in 1991. A parliamentary report in the late 1990s found that while the level of alcohol consumption was declining in France, the rate of decline was lower than before the Loi Évin was introduced. In Canada some provinces introduced a ban on alcohol advertising, but they lifted it after seven years when it was found the level of beer consumption was increasing. I, therefore, caution the committee in looking for a silver bullet. If there are concerns about advertising, the first step should be to introduce codes which are more flexible and can be changed more easily than a legislative restriction.

Senator Cullinane also mentioned the North-South element in pricing. He makes a fair point, as we need to be aware of what is happening in the North with regard to restrictions and pricing. We do not want to see a return to cross-Border shopping, with all that entails. I know there are conversations between North and South and that is the right thing to do.

Senator Crown has said alcohol might be illegal if it were invented today. I have heard this said previously. I return to the difference between responsible and irresponsible drinking. If alcohol were invented today, we might treat it with more respect. It would probably not be classed as illegal, but we might be encouraged to treat it with more respect.

Senator John Crown

It would fail on the carcinogenicity test.

Ms Kathryn D’Arcy

I will leave that to the medical experts. However, the Senator is absolutely right. Alcohol abuse costs society. I have looked at the HSE and Health Research Board figures and it is clear that we need to address the issue of alcohol misuse. If there was less alcohol misuse and we treated alcohol with respect and drank responsibly, we would be able to reduce the cost to society. That is something we need to do collectively, as well as separately.

Chairman, did I answer your direct question?

Chairman

You did; thank you.

Mr. Pádraig Cribben

Deputy Kelleher is right when he says the two main issues are pricing and availability. I also note that he said Cork people used alcohol when they were celebrating. They have been drowning their sorrows more frequently recently than celebrating. However, that is just an aside.

When the advisory council reported to the Minister at the end of 2007 or early in 2008, it advised that there should be segregation of alcohol in the mixed trading sector. That recommendation was included in the draft legislation and, following examination, passed by the Legislature. The Minister then decided not to commence section 9 of the 2008 Act. With regard to availability, that is the single biggest change that needs to be made. We do not need new legislation or consultation. All that is needed is the stroke of a Minister's pen to commence section 9. The retail sector is hiding behind the fig leaf of the Responsible Retailing of Alcohol in Ireland, RRIA, code. That action by the Minister would address the availability of cheap alcohol.

Senator Cullinane referred to the effect of increased excise rates on the incidence of smoking. It has had only a minor effect. We do not know what the level of cigarette consumption is because a significant minority of the cigarettes consumed in the country are brought in illegally. We do not know the level of importation so we do not know how many cigarettes are being consumed. I refer to an earlier contribution. Increasing excise duty will not increase the price at which alcohol is sold in supermarkets; excise will not come into it because they will sell at the price which will bring people into the stores. Four per cent of the business of UK multiples is alcohol; it drives 40% of their footfall. I have no doubt that the same situation applies here. Deputy Kelleher referred to the possibility of raising the age from 18 to 21. This is only a tinkering at the edges. It is a very small step. The nettle should be grasped. If I am 16 and I want to get alcohol and the age is increased from 18 to 21 with regard to off-licence sales, I will still get the alcohol. I agree that the penalties for secondary purchasing should be enhanced. If a publican in the on-trade sells to somebody who is 17, that publican's business will be closed down, even though he or she may have looked for ID and may have been furnished with ID, but there is no penalty for the individual who tries to buy the alcohol. Raising the age from 18 to 21 is a baby-step when full steps are required.

In answer to the question asked by Senator Crown, whether Ireland would be a better place if there was no alcohol, yes, of course it would be and it would also be a better place if there were no cigarettes, if there was no obesity. It would be a better place is there was not a whole range of things but then it would be a very dull place. I concur with Kathryn D'Arcy that it is not the use of alcohol that causes the problem but rather the misuse of alcohol.

Ms Fiona Ryan

We will do a two-hand reel in answering the questions. Like Deputy Kelleher, I am also from Cork but I think he must be from a different part of Cork if he has been celebrating sporting success because I have not seen that much recently.

Chairman

Ms Ryan must have forgotten last year's all-Ireland football final.

Ms Fiona Ryan

That is true.

Senator John Crown

She was celebrating electoral success.

Ms Fiona Ryan

Just to deal with the points raised, this is not rocket science. The World Health Organisation has provided a pretty good framework about what needs to be tackled if we are to reduce alcohol consumption. We need to find out if there is the political will to take those necessary steps to tackle alcohol consumption. This means tackling the pricing, availability and marketing of alcohol, the promotion of the product.

We are calling for minimum pricing. The alcohol industry will talk about below-cost selling but Mr. Cribben made the point more eloquently than I could. Below-cost selling is a red herring in this situation; it allows for alcohol not to be sold for less than excise duty and VAT but this allows for the sale of alcohol at pocket-money prices. Minimum pricing introduces a floor price below which alcohol cannot be sold. It is a win-win situation meaning that moderate drinkers will not feel the effects of it.

It is important to emphasise that Alcohol Action Ireland is not the only group advocating minimum pricing. When we put forward minimum pricing in our pre-budget submission, 15 organisations signed in support. I will name the organisations as it is important to put them on the record. The list includes, Barnardos, faculty of public health medicine, Royal College of Physicians in Ireland, Focus Ireland, Rape Crisis Network of Ireland, Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Ballymun Local Drugs Task Force, Irish Cancer Society, Irish Heart Foundation, Irish Medical Organisation, ISPCC, National Youth Council of Ireland, No-Name Club, North-West Alcohol Forum. I was contacted by the Irish Association for Suicidology and it asked for its name to be added to the list. These organisations span the leading children's organisations, the leading poverty organisations and some of the leading medical representative organisations.

Another point made about pricing was that it may be punitive for families who are struggling on limited budgets. A moderate drinker will not feel the effect of minimum pricing. A person who is drinking to excess will feel the effects of the minimum pricing but I suggest such persons have additional problems and that cheap booze is not the solution to poverty or to depression, which is prevalent during these recessionary times.

A question was asked about sports sponsorship. A working group on sports sponsorship could not reach a conclusion because it was hampered largely by the fact that those of us on the public health side were calling for alcohol sponsorship to be removed from sports for the reason that it associates alcohol with sporting success. The support for sports is not an altruistic move on the part of the alcohol industry. It was disappointing that the sports bodies were not of the same view. Sports sponsorship gives the alcohol industry access to a young lucrative male market. This is just another way of selling alcohol. In a country like ours which values sport, the association is inappropriate in the context of health and community. Alcohol is detrimental to health and to communities and we made that point in the working group. The issue was never resolved. It was kicked along to the national substance misuse strategy which is due to deliver its report by the end of the year and we await its views on that issue.

I will pick up on points made by Kathryn D'Arcy. The biggest driver for cross-Border trade was not alcohol but rather it was the sterling difference. According to the CSO analysis, alcohol accounted for 11% of sales. The cross-Border traffic was in fact a nappy run; people were going North for their boxes of disposable nappies and buying booze along the way. I acknowledge there were specific times around Christmas but in general, it was a nappy run.

The issue of alcohol marketing is taken seriously in Northern Ireland. There has been a big public consultation process regarding the minimum pricing of alcohol. Scotland is due to introduce minimum pricing legislation by the end of the year. The Northern Irish are in consultation with Scotland. The public consultation has been held and it is in favour of minimum pricing because it is regarded as a potential for dealing with public health problems and anti-social and crime problems.

Alcohol Action Ireland took very seriously the views of Dáil Members regarding anti-social behaviour and crime and the impact of alcohol in constituencies and the views of Senators with regard to alcohol in communities. Next Tuesday, 15 November, we are holding a conference in the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland on the issue of alcohol and crime. Speakers from Northern Ireland will speak about the issues there and with regard to the cross-jurisdictional perspective.

Kathryn D'Arcy said that I had said there were problems in legislating for digital marketing. That may have been a slight stretching of what I said. I highlighted the issues associated with digital marketing; I did not say there were no solutions to it. It is a little disingenuous considering that members of the alcohol industry attended our conference last year and saw Dr. Pat Kenny from DIT demonstrate how a false age identification could be posted on Facebook and so access an alcohol page. One needs a credit card verification for gambling websites to validate age but this is not required with regard to digital marketing. However, I accept her point about Facebook. Kids are acting as viral marketeers for major alcohol brands. They are inviting their friends and 15 year olds are being invited by 18 year olds to "like" a pub or a major alcohol brand. There is a blurring of reality between events and marketing products. I refer to Blip applications which are in publications. We are all adults of a certain age and I am from a public health background and yet we are light years behind them, we are running to keep up. I cannot advocate strongly enough that we need to get beyond attempting to make regulations for transistor radios in the era of the iPad.

There is a voluntary code which states that its aim is to reduce young people's exposure to alcohol marketing. We do not know if that is happening and it is inadequate. We know there are ways of tackling digital marketing on a national basis for websites originating in Ireland. We can put pressure and influence on a European basis to find a pan-European solution because other states are faced with this problem. We work on a European level within the European alcohol and health forum which is sponsored by DG SANCO, the Commission's department of health. I can guarantee that countries from the Netherlands to the UK to Denmark are all facing the same issues. We do not have to do this in isolation. If this is a pan-European or globalised problem, then we can find a globalised solution. At the same time, this does not mean we cannot act at home on the issue.

I agree with Senator John Crown that Ireland would be a better place if we reduced our alcohol consumption levels. My colleague, Dr. Smith, may wish to comment on this, particularly in regard to responsibility and the language of responsibility.

Dr. Bobby Smith

On the issue of advertising, Deputy Billy Kelleher seems convinced that if we increase prices and tackle availability, we will thus apply a brake to some extent to the level of alcohol use in the State. I do not understand why one would choose not to avail of every single opportunity to take one's foot off the accelerator. The reality is that advertising is a driver behind consumption, and while reducing availability and increasing cost will slow down and reduce our alcohol use, I do not know why we would continue to keep the foot on the accelerator in that respect. I am strongly of the view that alcohol advertising should be significantly curtailed.

Senator David Cullinane asked about the impact of the current guidelines and the policy of self-regulation in regard to alcohol advertising. The bottom line is that they are an exercise in smoke and mirrors, with their primary - indeed, only, function - being to keep legislators at bay. The guidelines on alcohol advertising permit advertising on television where up to 25% of viewers are children. Children account for only 20% of the potential audience, because audience profiling includes only those aged four and above. Therefore, the current guidelines allow the alcohol industry to advertise during television programmes which are preferentially watched by children. Yet Ms Kathryn D'Arcy describes these guidelines as "strict". To reiterate, the current guidelines allow the alcohol industry to advertise during television programmes which are preferentially watched by children. That is unacceptable in a country which has among the highest rates of-----

Chairman

Is Dr. Smith saying there is no prohibition on advertising at those times?

Dr. Bobby Smith

I am saying that if 24% of viewers of a programme are children, one can advertise alcohol during that programme. The only way a programme will have 24% child viewers if it is preferentially watched by children relative to adults. Children account for only 20% of the potential television viewing audience. The guidelines, therefore, are very far from strict.

Th advertising industry produces an annual report, entitled Restricting the Exposure of Children to Advertising, but it does not measure that exposure. I have a seven year old and a 17 year old at home. The industry cannot tell me how many advertisements my seven year old sees per week or how many advertisements the average 17 year old is exposed to on a weekly basis. If the industry were serious about restricting children's exposure to advertising it would measure that exposure before implementing guidelines and then remeasuring it. Instead, all it is doing in this exercise of smoke and mirrors is coming up with guidelines which are nonsensical in many ways and then merely measuring adherence to those nonsensical guidelines. This allows the industry to claim, on an annual basis, that it is doing brilliantly well in terms of what it said it would do. However, the bottom line is that there is no measurement of the impact of such advertising on children.

Similarly, what is the purpose of the responsible retailer guidelines? Is it to reduce purchases of alcohol? It is entirely unclear. Yet again we merely have a list of things retailers say they will do, and what is measured annually is whether they are adhering to what they said they would do. They do not have any stated goal that is in any way linked to harm reduction or reducing the societal burden associated with alcohol misuse.

The simple answer to Senator John Crown's question is "Yes". I have often thought that if everyone in Ireland could simply give up alcohol for one month, hospital waiting lists would be seriously diminished, there would be no patients on trolleys in any accident and emergency department and one could probably send home one third of-----

Chairman

I am not sure one can claim with certainty there would be nobody on trolleys. I wish Dr. Smith were right about that, but I am not convinced.

Senator John Crown

I believe Dr. Smith is correct.

Chairman

I am just posing a question

Dr. Bobby Smith

Some 50% of patients presenting to the Mater hospital with injuries are alcohol-related cases. Not all of these people are admitted, but many of them are. If we were to eliminate all those short-term admissions, the problem of patients waiting on trolleys would disappear. Moreover, given that alcohol is the principal driver of public disorder, we could send one third of gardaí home at weekends. At the extreme end of the spectrum, 50% of homicides are alcohol related. Ireland would be a staggeringly different place if we did not drink as much.

Chairman

To clarify, there is an absolute determination, seriousness and willingness on the part of this committee, in a cross-party approach, to tackle this issue head on. I will not pre-empt the outcome of the committee's work, but there will be no obfuscation or dilution in regard to our recommendations, whatever those recommendations may be. We are serious about tackling the issue of alcohol misuse. A total of seven weeks has been set aside to examine the issue, and we will not accept the report we produce being lost in the ether.

Deputy Peter Fitzpatrick

I thank the delegates for attending the meeting. Today's debate has left me rather confused. I will have to take time to consider all the points that have been made by the various speakers. Although I am a non-drinker, I have no problem with people drinking in moderation. However, there is a serious problem of alcohol misuse in this country. While the focus in this regard is generally on underage drinking, it is equally a problem among adults, including parents. The most important factor in this regard is that alcohol is too easy to access and far too cheap. No matter where I go, whether my local shop or a large supermarket, one sees nothing but alcohol.

There are 450,000 people out of work in this country, many of whom may be vulnerable to the attractions of cheap alcohol. One can buy a bottle of Miller beer in the supermarket for 75 cent, while one will pay €3 or €4 for the same drink in the local pub. Likewise, a measure of vodka costs €4 in the pub, but one can purchase a bottle of vodka for €15 in the supermarket. My wife and I ordered a bottle of wine at dinner with friends some weeks ago at a cost of €20. I was told by one of my dining companions that the same wine can be purchased for €1.99 in the local supermarket.

The delegates pointed out that six years ago 70% of alcohol consumption took place in pubs, with off-trade accounting for the remainder. Today the corresponding figures are 45% and 55%, respectively. One does not have to be a genius to realise that people simply cannot afford to drink in pubs and are choosing instead to avail of cheap offers in supermarkets and drink at home. Some 30,000 jobs have been lost in the pub trade in recent years as a result of this decline in on-trade consumption of alcohol, although I am sure the smoking ban has also had an effect. It would be a shame to see the decline of local pubs, an important forum for socialising for many people, because the price of alcohol is deterring them from partaking in that activity.

We are told that alcohol sales have fallen by 41% since the 2001 peak. In the Border town in County Louth in which I live, for many years I watched car and bus loads of people coming from as far away as Cork on their way to Newry to purchase groceries, of which a large component was alcohol. If children are brought on a day trip only to see Daddy and Mammy stocking up on drink, that gives out a worrying message.

In regard to the proposal for a minimum alcohol price, my concern is that if such were imposed in the Twenty-six Counties but there was no similar initiative in the Six Counties, that would constitute a huge incentive for people to travel north to shop. We are always talking about creating and maintaining jobs and, in this context, it is a matter of achieving the correct balance. I welcome the powers awarded to the Garda Síochána to confiscate alcohol from under age drinkers. However, it is important that their parents do the same. I have on occasion caught my three children with alcohol, which I confiscated. I am not sure whether Deputy Kelleher's proposal to increase the drinking age to 21 years would make a difference. It is a problem of culture and custom. When one travels to Spain, for example, one sees people enjoying alcohol without abusing it in the manner that is commonplace in this country.

As a person from a sporting background, sport is a fantastic way of keeping oneself fit and one's body in shape. There are many people - I am one of them - who do not drink. As with other matters, there is peer pressure in respect of alcohol. I have been involved in sport for many years and I know that in the clubhouse after a match, one will see a group in one corner whose members drink and another non-drinking group in a different corner. They do not mingle because when certain individuals get a few drinks on board, they tend to become extremely talkative or whatever and others do not want to socialise with them.

The bottom line is that we have a major problem with alcohol. We should put our heads together to resolve this problem. We should come to some agreement in respect of the price to be charged for alcohol. I want to see this matter being put to rights. I thank our guests for coming before us.

Senator Imelda Henry

I welcome the delegates and thank them for their presentations. Deputy Regina Doherty and I have spoken on several occasions about the serious problem here in the context of alcohol misuse. We will work to develop a programme which should be implemented in national schools. From an early age children should become aware of the problems associated with the misuse of alcohol and what it can do to a person and the effect it can have on a family. We need definite action in this area and it should be forthcoming sooner rather than later.

I am a member of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, which met recently. I was involved in informal conversations with parliamentarians from the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Scottish Assembly and with MPs from Westminster. Everyone to whom I spoke was of the same opinion in respect of minimum pricing. We must take action to deal with minimum pricing. The Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Shortall, came before the committee a number of weeks ago and I am aware that she is committed to taking action on minimum pricing. We should not be concerned with regard to what might happen in Britain or in the North because those to whom I spoke at the meeting of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly are all of the same opinion as us.

As previous speakers stated, irresponsible drinking and the misuse of alcohol are encouraged by two things, namely, availability and price. There was a time when people went to their local pub - unfortunately, not too many of them are doing so now - and drank in a controlled environment. Most publicans with whom I am familiar are very responsible people. In the past, in a pub if people had too much to drink they would not be served any further alcohol. In addition, they would be asked to leave if they became too drunk. Let us be blunt, the major problem we have at present relates to supermarkets selling alcohol. I heard Mr. John Higgins interviewed on several radio programmes and his story is tragic. The reality is that one can purchase cheap alcohol in supermarkets. What supermarkets do is increase the price of other products so that they might sell alcohol at a lower price.

The committee will discuss the subject of marketing at its meeting on 17 November. As the Chairman stated, we have been engaged in discussions in respect of alcohol-related matters for weeks and it is top of our list of priorities. The committee is committed, on a cross-party basis, to taking action in respect of this matter. We must take action, sooner rather than later, on the voluntary code, which is not being adhered to. As Mr. Cribben stated, the penalties which can be imposed on publicans for serving under-age drinkers are particularly stringent. What are the penalties which apply in respect of supermarkets which sell alcohol to people who are under age? I am sure Ms Ryan is aware that children are starting to drink at 11 or 12 years of age.

The Minister of State, Deputy Shortall, informed the committee that minimum pricing is a major element in respect of what is required. As already stated, there are other actions which can be taken such as putting an awareness programme in place in national schools so that children might be warned about the dangers involved in misusing alcohol. I hope all members will support whatever action is suggested in respect of minimum pricing.

Deputy Robert Dowds

I will be as brief as possible, particularly as many of the salient points have already been made by previous speakers. The main question I pose is directed to the Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland, ABFI. From the response to Senator Crown's remarks, I take it that the ABFI accepts that there is a problem here with regard to the abuse of alcohol. If that is the case, are our guests from the ABFI in a position to assure the committee that they will not oppose the Government if it introduces minimum pricing or moves to ban advertising and sponsorship? The logical answer should be that they will not oppose us in respect of those matters. I put it to them that if they do, they will contribute to a huge number of cases of ill health, of children being abused, of unwanted teenage pregnancies and even deaths. If they oppose us, they will, in part, be guilty with regard to the consequences. I urge them not to come out against us.

When people drink alcohol, they must do so in a responsible way and in a controlled environment, such as that which obtains in public houses. We must bring an end to extremely serious problems being visited upon the communities which members represent. The Garda's PULSE system has identified the fact that alcohol is a contributory factor in 97% of public order offences. This is directly linked to people drinking in public places such as parks, and in their houses, and so on. I urge the ABFI not to oppose us in respect of this matter and I seek an assurance from it in that regard.

Chairman

There are three other members who wish to contribute. I will ask the delegates to reply to that block of questions and then we will proceed to take questions from the three members to whom I refer.

Ms Kathryn D’Arcy

I will deal first with the direct question put to me by Deputy Dowds. The Deputy was correct in his interpretation of what I said. As an industry, we will do our best to either remove misuse or, as a start, reduce the level thereof. We do not support any misuse, regardless of whether it is by minors or by people who exceed the recommended weekly limits. Where we fall down is in terms of how to address that matter.

The Deputy outlined a number of policy proposals which the group might consider. All of them merit discussion. I have been very clear in respect of our view with regard to the removal of the ban on below-cost selling. The only matter in respect of which I fall out with others present - both on this and on the opposite side of the table - relates to the way to proceed. If it is proven that minimum pricing would be effective for the Irish market, that may be the way to address the matter of below-cost selling. I would argue that a ban on below cost selling also merits discussion. I do not favour one solution over the other. There are difficulties in respect of definitions and Ms Ryan stated that using a definition which contemplated excise and VAT might prove problematic. However, the previous definition of below-cost selling included reference to the invoice price. This meant that it was higher than would have been the case with regard to excise and VAT because it took other issues into account.

If the proposals that this committee or others put forward are evidence-based and if it can be proven that they would reduce the level of misuse, we would absolutely support them.

Deputy Robert Dowds

Does Ms D'Arcy accept that any successful attempt to ban advertising would be based on evidence? There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the advertising of alcohol increases the abuse of it.

Ms Kathryn D’Arcy

I was just coming to that matter and I was not going to ignore the Deputy's question in respect of it. I was about to state that Senator Henry's point that we should begin educating people about the consequences of alcohol misuse at a very young age is extremely important. There is evidence available which contradicts some of the evidence to which Deputy Dowds refers in respect of advertising. I am of the view that all of the evidence must be considered. There is just as much evidence to indicate that advertising has a limited impact. In particular, mass media-----

Deputy Robert Dowds

Why then do alcohol companies engage in advertising? They do not advertise without good reason.

Ms Kathryn D’Arcy

For us, advertising relates to differentiating between brands. We do not advertise to encourage young people to start drinking.

Deputy Robert Dowds

I reject Ms D'Arcy's comments.

Ms Kathryn D’Arcy

I thank the Deputy.

Chairman

We must move on.

Mr. Pádraig Cribben

I agree with Deputy Dowds that we need to get back to a position where alcohol is consumed in a responsible place. I agree with Deputy Fitzpatrick that the access is too easy and the product is too cheap in certain places.

I also agree with Senator Henry on the problem being the supermarkets and on her point about an education programme starting at a certain level. An education programme is worthy of serious consideration. It is a long-term project; it is not a short-term fix. There are two elements to be looked at here - the short-term fix which is addressing the availability and the price; and the long-term fix which is about education, responsibility, etc.

Deputy Fitzpatrick referred to what in many cases is sadly lacking, namely, parental control and parental oversight. In many cases, we find that the alcohol is being purchased for the minors, in some case, by the parents themselves.

Ms Fiona Ryan

I know how committed the committee is to making solid recommendations. It is heartening that the committee's recommendations will not be sidelined as another report gathering dust. I have heard that and will ensure that I take it back to the 15 organisations representing key aspects of the charity NGO sector on minimum pricing.

On Deputy Fitzpatrick's points on the impact, the connection between pricing and people's consumption habits, last year, as part of the same survey we commissioned, we asked if the price of alcohol were to increase by just 10% would they buy less, and 47% of them agreed. We asked what if it was to go up by 30%, which was merely to take it to the extreme, and 70% agreed. We asked if the price of alcohol were to decrease would they buy more, and 30% basically agreed. The reality is consumers are price sensitive and even with a 10% increase, 47% stated that they would buy less. That is my first point.

On below-cost selling of which Ms D'Arcy spoke - I spoke about excise duty and VAT and I do not want to drill down into this because I can imagine how dull it is - the reality is the previous regime based its price, as Ms D'Arcy stated, on invoice pricing - what was known in the trade as pallet pricing. Let us just say, those pallet prices varied considerably depending on which way the wind was blowing. It was recognised effectively as being unworkable and open to wide variations. The beauty about minimum pricing is that it is based on the percentage of alcohol of the drink one is selling.

In Scotland, there is not universal support for below-cost selling rather than minimum pricing. The following alcohol giants have come out in favour of minimum pricing in the Scottish context. Tennents, Molson Coors and the brewing giant, Greene King, all have come out in favour of minimum pricing. The committee ought not presume, because of whatever is being said potentially here by a certain group of alcohol producers, that may be the case in other jurisdictions as well. One must recognise on this issue that we are dealing with a global industry and a global product and it goes beyond our jurisdictional borders. That is why I was grateful when Senator Henry stated that she had been speaking on a North-South basis and on an east-west basis.

There is widespread acceptance, as Senator Henry will be aware, in the North and in Scotland that minimum pricing is a way of going forward provided minimum pricing is set at a level that will make an impact. I repeat it is a floor price. It does not necessarily mean that prices will go up across the board. It certainly will not impact on the pub trade. In fact, it will be a protective factor for jobs within the pub trade, but Mr. Cribben is well able to make that point far better than I can on this issue.

On the Intoxicating Liquor Act, the new powers allow alcohol to be seized from young people in public spaces. My understanding is, however, that it has little impact on parties in private residences. Consequently,-----

Deputy Robert Dowds

The gardaí could not win in that situation.

Ms Fiona Ryan

-----what is the impact?

On education, it is important to be aware that the World Health Organization has conducted a massive study. It has looked at the jurisdictions and what works. It has emphasised pricing, availability and marketing.

On education as an initiative by itself, for example, the scare campaigns do not work by themselves. If one is talking about a proper education programme put in place in conjunction with the measures that we know work such as pricing and availability, then it has a much greater chance of succeeding but it is important for everyone in this room to realise that the primary educators of a person's children on the matter of alcohol is not the person or the education programmes, but the alcohol industry. The alcohol industry are the ones who are broadcasting alcohol marketing on a 24/7 basis across every available media channel.

Even in the case of the SPHE programme of which we would be supporters, can two hours over the course of a term really take on that surround sound and surround vision alcohol marketing where every message and every image is telling one's kid to like and use alcohol? Mention was made correctly of those aged 11 or 12. In the space of a decade the age of first drinking has dropped from 16 years to 14 years.

We reiterate we are not anti-alcohol. I myself drink alcohol. What we are talking about is having a grown-up conversation about alcohol and I am delighted to say the committee is a part of this process.

We mentioned pricing availability and marketing. I think that is about it from us. I do not know whether Dr. Smith wants to say anything.

Chairman

I welcome those in the public Gallery: Ms Cliona Murphy from Alcohol Action Ireland; Mr. Stephen Lynam, Ms Aoife Clarke and Ms Majella Fitzpatrick from ABFI; and Mr. Martin O'Dea and Mr. Gerry Rafter from VFI.

At this stage, I ask Deputy Conway to take over the Chair. My apologise for having to leave. I must go to speak in the Dáil. On my own behalf, I thank the delegations for being here today.

Deputy Ciara Conway took the Chair.

Deputy Regina Doherty

I welcome the delegations and thank them for their presentation. I preface my comments by saying that they are not directed at any individual. I appreciate that most of those here represent a particular body and may not share the views that they express today.

I have never thought about alcohol so much in my whole life as I have in the past seven or eight weeks. At this stage, I am nearly obsessed with it. If I can explain how I have arrived at my current thinking, maybe it will not seem as draconian as it might sound.

I consider myself a relatively young woman. I have four young children. My eldest is only 12 this weekend and it really frightens me that in two years time, the average statistics will tell me, I will be having discussions or problems with him. Please God, I will not be.

I have 20 years of experience of and my educational background is in marketing, and this is where I will refute some of the statements made this morning. The single biggest statement made by an organisation this morning is that alcohol marketing has little ability to increase demand. Then one must step back with one's marketing head and ask why they are spending so much money on alcohol marketing. They will state that as they will not increase the market, what they need do is ensure that they capture market share.

Then I think of myself as a particular customer. The only way one will influence me, a person who has been practising a particular kind of drinking for 20 years, is to do it in the environment where I do my drinking because no end of glossy, skinny women drinking martinis will influence me on a magazine. They are not coming into the places where I am having my social drink and trying to influence me. They are spending the bulk of their marketing advertisement on the print media, the television media and, what is really frighten to me as a mother, the digital media because they are not talking to me through Facebook - it is those who are a great deal younger to whom they are speaking.

Then the word "responsibility" keeps coming around in my head. It is a word which was used quite a good deal this morning. If we were more responsible as patrons, then we would not have the difficulties to the extent that we do from the medical and abuse perspectives.

I believe that the majority of advertising being done at present is to get new customers to compensate for the fact that, as people pass away, one loses customers. The only place they are getting new customers is in the under-18 market space. The voluntary code has been there for a number of years. The drinks industry's practice does not prove that it is marketing its product responsibly. I believe it provides a strong argument to state that if they cannot act responsibly to market their own product, then we as legislators should step up to the mark and state we need to force them to do it. I do not even think the codes go far enough because one can pay anybody to provide research to suit one's particular train of thought. It needs to be banned.

The association between sports and drink is seriously damaging. I return to what Ms Ryan said earlier. First, sport is an easily accessible way to associate oneself with something that is good for one. Perhaps the odd glass of wine might be good for one but the amount of people who are drinking in excess is not good for people in this country. More importantly, it is associating drink with people of a particular age. With no disrespect to anyone, there are not many people of my age who are out playing GAA football or camogie on a Saturday morning. They are all a lot younger than me.

I wish to briefly refer to the availability of alcohol. It frightens me that there are few places that I can go where it is not possible to buy drink. I do not see the value of having supermarkets selling alcohol. When I was a child, practices were very different. The only reason we would have ever bought alcohol in a supermarket years ago was to get a bottle of Guinness to put into the Christmas pudding or Christmas cake. Now when I go to a supermarket on a Friday or Saturday to do my shopping there is not a trolley without alcohol. Practices have changed hugely.

Alcohol is not a grocery item. It should not be subject to the groceries order. Below-cost selling is a fallacy. We need minimum pricing in this country. It will not affect one jot the Vintners Federation of Ireland. It will assist those in the off-licence business on this island who are crying out for help because they are hanging on by their finger nails as they are forced to compete with the multiples who see no problem with their responsibility in selling alcohol by the tray-load or bucket-load. One can buy six bottles of wine and get two bottles free.

There is nothing responsible about what the multiples are doing in this country. They are forcing others to follow suit in order to compete with them. They have proven without a shadow of a doubt that they do not know how to behave responsibly with regard to the sale of alcohol in this country. I feel very strongly about this. It is incumbent upon us all to remove the ability of multiples to sell alcohol in this country forthwith.

Deputy Eamonn Maloney

In common with others I believe for some time that Irish society has a great love for its own drugs. Alcohol has the status of being the national drug. It has been the subject of a variety of reports by various Members of the Dáil in previous years. There are many reports on the subject, many of them of which I was unaware. They could probably fill this room. They contain lots of advice and recommendations. The report of the Alcohol Advisory Council in the 1960s, in common with some of the other reports, used terminology in its conclusion to the effect that it was a national crisis.

If alcohol was a crisis for Irish society in the 1960s I cannot think of any word in the English language that would describe the present situation. It is alarming. Irrespective of which party or none that politicians come from, it is a delusion to drop their heads on this issue given the widespread damage that continues to be done across Irish society. I am sure all of the reports were written with the best of intentions and with great expertise. Irrespective of which Dáil dealt with the reports, none of them had the courage to do something about it. That is why the problem is the way it is and that is why we are dealing with it today.

The Irish Examiner is my favourite national newspaper. The front page article in yesterday’s newspaper is an interesting one. The editorial is one of the best I have read about the national drug. If people such as I and others cannot wake up to this call to deal with the issue we will do exactly as other Members of the House have done in previous years and will end up with a bad situation getting worse.

I do not intend any disrespect to anyone who has made a contribution this morning but much of the talk has been about the problem of under age drinking. I have always been fascinated by the terminology. People say it is a huge problem and tut tut about it. Does that mean the only problem with alcohol is its consumption by under age people? That is blatant hypocrisy to take one section of society and say how terrible it is that they are drinking, while the other half are out of their head. It is not good enough to separate the issue into youth having a difficulty with alcohol consumption while ignoring the vast bulk of society. Of course we should be concerned that young people are consuming alcohol and to such an extent that they are damaging themselves and their family but that is just avoiding the real issue of alcohol. I am not against it being dealt with and I support it.

Apart from the age issue the other matter that has been repeatedly mentioned this morning, rightly so, is that of price control. I agree with the suggestions on dealing with under age drinking but let no one leave the meeting thinking that if one is going to do that and to introduce price controls that the issue will be resolved. If that is the case people are deluding themselves.

I hope those present will understand my point. Let us be blunt, alcohol changes one's mindset. Senator Crown dealt with it better than I could in terms of the nature of the change. I could never understand how it could be acceptable in society that parents would shop in a supermarket and bring their children with them and while buying their Ballygowan or bread that alcohol would become part of the weekly shopping. What sort of message does that send out to a generation of children? Is it any wonder that we spend so much time talking about under age drinking? The message goes out that it is quite harmless. Getting drunk or more than that is harmless. We must insure ourselves in that regard.

When the Minister of State, Deputy Shortall, attended the committee a month ago, I made clear my view that I have held for some time, which is that I strongly believe that there should be a ban on supermarkets selling alcohol. She may not agree with me but I will not change my mind. An increasing number of people feel that way. I do not know the Minister of State's view. She will make her recommendations but I am convinced that a supermarket is not the place for alcohol.

Perhaps I should not be light-hearted about it but to put it in perspective, given the State of our economy and that we depend on the French and German taxpayers to keep the lights on and pay our wages, I hope that they do not read yesterday's Irish Examiner. Let us look at what alcohol does to the medical system and to schools. One can ask any garda about the implications for Garda stations at the weekend.

Uncontrolled drinking in society is costing us in excess of €3 billion. The Germans and French will have something to say about throwing money at us if we are not prepared to address the difficulty we are having with alcohol in Irish society.

Deputy Catherine Byrne

I thank the witnesses for their contributions. I work in the voluntary and youth sector and, as one of the kids would say, my head is melted. One of my claims to fame as a member of Dublin City Council was to draw attention to an advertisement in a local supermarket window depicting Santa sitting on his sleigh while holding a bottle of beer. The supermarket's alcohol products were also displayed in its front window. Thank God, that has changed and the council now monitors supermarkets to ensure they do not display or advertise alcohol on or near their front windows.

I love to visit the pub even though I do not drink. I do not go often, other than to participate in a local quiz, party or fund-raising event. There is a connection between local publicans and the communities they serve, particularly for those who live in isolated areas. The pub can act as a community centre at which people can meet and enjoy each other's company. I live ten minutes away from the Guinness brewery, which was one of the only providers of jobs in the inner city. A friend of mine recently watched a television chat show hosted by Alan Carr in which guests were offered alcohol when they arrived on the scene. Among the guests on the show were the members of a prominent pop group, all of whom were drinking shots. That pop group, the name of which I will not mention, is soon to split up.

Deputy Eamonn Maloney

That is good news.

Deputy Catherine Byrne

It is more expensive for a young child to buy a cinema ticket, a packet of popcorn and a can of coke than to buy a case of alcohol. The same can be said for the theatre and sporting events. Young adults cannot attend such events anymore because the prices are off the wall. The alternative is to turn up at the local supermarket or ask people to buy drinks for them. This has caused a rapid increase in young people drinking locally on football pitches, in parks or along the canal bank.

I have two daughters attending college, one of whom told me about a €3 drink special that takes place in her college every Thursday. I did not realise that one could buy drink at a discount at certain times. It is appalling that such practices are permitted in our universities and colleges.

We have to think outside the box if we are to find ways of curtailing young people's ambitions to drink. The cost of alcohol misuse is €1.2 billion according to a health document I read earlier. As a community worker, I would love to be able to invest that money in swimming pools and youth clubs or in bringing children to the Dublin mountains for outdoor activities. Many young people are looking for alternatives such as the GAA or the Knights of Malta and they are turning into good adults who are capable of contributing to their communities. However, the only pursuit apparent to others is going out on the town over the weekend and blowing their minds on alcohol. Those of us who come from the inner city, which has been devastated by drugs, are aware that drink is the first step for young people who end up taking drugs, particularly if they binge drink.

I would love to see a ban on the advertising of alcohol on television. One knows Christmas is near when one sees the Budweiser or the Coca Cola advertisements. Alcohol should not be advertised on television, radio or sporting events. The only reason why companies advertise is to make profits.

I am aware that the young adults in my home drink when they go out with their friends. As a parent, however, my responsibility is to make them aware of the problems that result from drinking too much and I hope I have touched a chord about responsible drinking. We all know what has to be done about cheap alcohol but the alcohol industry could also invest more time and money in community activities for young people who may not have the same opportunities as others. This might also encourage them to drink sensibly in the future.

The €1.2 billion spent in our emergency departments as a result of alcohol related problems would be better invested in providing medical facilities for children and young adults.

Ms Kathryn D’Arcy

Given her background, Deputy Regina Doherty knows more than many about marketing and advertising. I agree that we look for new costumers but we generally take them from other brands. Our advertising is aimed at opening the awareness of our respective brands. Even though beer products are advertised more than any other type of alcohol, its consumption has waned over the past 15 years, whereas wine consumption is on the increase even though it receives the least advertising. Something other than advertising is at work.

Several speakers advocated a ban on advertising of alcohol products. The practical difficulty of a legislative ban compared to co-regulatory codes is that we are a small nation with four indigenous channels. If a ban on television advertising was introduced in the morning, the other channels would continue to advertise under the European Union television without frontiers legislation. At present they abide by our codes on a voluntary basis but they cannot be forced to do so from a legislative point of view. I ask the committee to bear these practicalities in mind.

Deputy Maloney described alcohol abuse as a national crisis. I agree with him that under age drinking is not the only aspect of the problem and I hope I did not give the impression that we are solely concerned with that issue. On a more positive note, a national survey on life attitudes and nutrition indicated that the frequency of binge drinking and the amount of alcohol consumed in one sitting has decreased since the previous surveys were conducted in 1998 and 2002. Unfortunately, the cohort aged between 18 and 29 has not reported a decrease. I accept the Deputy's comments in regard to the societal issues arising.

Deputy Catherine Byrne drew our attention to the cost of abuse. While I will not delay, reiterating the cost of abuse is something that must be borne in mind. I am answering two questions but I believe we take our role in marketing responsibly. If there are issues members would like to raise with me either separately or collectively, I would be delighted to discuss them. As for funding local initiatives, I should point out The Brewers of Europe carried out a survey to consider sponsorship and on where their money goes. Only 12% goes to the headline events, be they sporting, cultural or festival-related, and much more goes to what that organisation would call local or regional. I will leave it at that unless there are further questions.

Senator John Crown

I ask Ms Garth and Mr. Mellett to answer the question I asked earlier on their opinion as to whether Ireland would be a better place if there was a dramatic decline in alcohol consumption.

Ms Rosemary Garth

The "Yes" or "No" answer.

Senator John Crown

Yes or no.

Ms Rosemary Garth

I will respond by saying, yes Ireland absolutely would be a better place were everyone to drink responsibly. I think-----

Senator John Crown

The question I asked was, "if there was less alcohol consumption, would it be better for the country, yes or no?".

Ms Rosemary Garth

Life would be very easy if the answer to everything was "Yes" or "No".

Senator John Crown

Everyone knows the answer is "Yes". I am simply asking Ms Garth to acknowledge it.

Ms Rosemary Garth

If the Senator is asking for my opinion, I will give it. It is that we would be better off were we all to drink responsibly. The danger to taking an overall population approach is that some people could drink far less while others could drink far more. When discussing alcohol abuse, unfortunately it is rarely a black and white issue as there is an awful lot of grey. This is an important point to mention, so my answer is "Yes" to drinking responsibly.

Mr. Gerry Mellett

After spending 32 years in the drinks industry as a publican, my own experience has not led me to perceive a serious problem in the on-trade in respect of drink or its consumption.

Senator John Crown

On a point of information, that is not the question I asked.

Mr. Gerry Mellett

Okay, it is not but it is important that I explain the position. I also have an off-licence and I see massive abuses taking place in that area. Consequently, my point to the Senator is I do not see a problem with drink sold in a controlled environment. However, I see a major problem with drink coming out of supermarkets and off-licences because of lack of control. That is my experience.

Senator John Crown

The record should reflect the failure of the previous two speakers to answer the question.

Acting Chairman (Deputy Ciara Conway)

I will offer the question to them again but I do not believe the Senator will get anything more.

Senator John Crown

No.

Deputy Jerry Buttimer resumed the Chair.

Mr. Pádraig Cribben

If I may sum up, perhaps they were not answered in the way the Senator wished but that is a separate issue. Were I to respond to the last three speakers, when listening to Deputy Regina Doherty, I thought that if ever she needed the motion seconded in respect of supermarkets, I would be quick to do so. However, I note Deputy Maloney did so very quickly and it is good to see such a level of cross-party support within the Government parties. The Vintners Federation of Ireland would like to see that level of cross-party support translated into cross-party action. While I do not suggest either Deputy was merely engaging in rhetoric, it is easy to do that. Consequently, cross-party action is what is required.

We obviously have a specific agenda, as does everyone present, but our agenda is tempered by reality. We accept the issue regarding alcohol is not necessarily about its use but about those who misuse it. One must recognise that many people use alcohol in a sensible and responsible way. As I stated earlier in respect of 96% of the people who I represent, they operate family-owned businesses and have families. Although not all publicans act as they should, the vast majority of them do. They act in a responsible fashion. For example, they drive people home from the pub to ensure the number of road accidents is reduced or whatever and they act responsibly in the manner in which they look after people. There will be fewer and fewer of them because of what is happening in the community and with regard to the availability and pricing of alcohol.

I reiterate the pricing of alcohol mechanism, which some people have been advocating in terms of increased excise, will do nothing for the problem because the problem is cheap alcohol. Were this joint committee, through its good offices, to see its way towards recommending a mechanism that already exists to ensure a minimum price is introduced, that is, by ensuring the commencement of sections 9 and 16 of the 2008 Act, which would address both price-related advertising and the segregation of product, that would go a long way towards addressing two key issues that feed into the misuse, namely, the issues of availability and pricing. I thank the Chairman and the joint committee for the courtesy extended to us today.

Ms Fiona Ryan

I have tremendous sympathy with whoever said her head was melted. When thinking about alcohol, one should try working for an alcohol charity. Half the time, one sits there thinking one must develop another interest in life. On a more serious note, like Deputy Regina Doherty I have a background in communications. As they say, I was a journalist but I am okay now. When one comes from such a background, one finds it extremely hard to swallow some of the marketing spin sent towards one, because one is familiar with marketing. I am trusting members' obvious intelligence on the issue to take a great deal of what has been heard from the other side of the table with a grain of salt.

While I defer to my learned colleague in this regard, they have 60,000 new consumers coming on board every year, while many of their existing consumers are dying. It is not simply a matter of switching brands to the other because as Deputy Doherty knows from her marketing background, it is much more difficult to switch a brand than it is to initiate one. The problem is that because the kids are drinking earlier, they need to get to the consumers earlier. Even if one accepts there are ethical producers that decide not to go near the underage market in Ireland, they are coming under pressure from the other producers that are doing so. The reality is that if 60,000 new consumers start every year at the age of 15, there will be tremendous commercial pressure to engage with those young people and to make them one's new consumers. This is the reality and is the reason they spend not just millions, but billions each year to do it. This is the reason they are trying to reach the kids in places where the kids interact, such as Facebook and digital marketing.

I believe Deputy Fitzpatrick mentioned the issue of pricing and I accept his point that the price differential between the on-trade and the off-trade is massive. Alcohol Action Ireland is aware that minimum pricing will affect cheap alcohol, which pertains to the need to put in place floor pricing. Basically, I refer to the fact that a woman can reach her low-risk weekly limit for €7, while a man can do so for €10. In other words, it takes one hour worked on a minimum wage to reach one's low-risk weekly limits.

I could not agree more with Deputy Maloney. Ireland has a society-wide problem with alcohol. It is not simply a young people's problem but I presume the reason we are focusing on young people is that we are going for a preventive approach and are trying to stop the problem from carrying on through the generations. However, as matters stand, it is a widespread problem and the Deputy is correct, in respect of tackling pricing, availability and alcohol marketing, that they comprise just part of a complex framework. However, they are key components, particularly pricing and availability.

In response to Deputy Catherine Byrne, I am reminded of the story about Brendan Behan in which he was sitting and drinking his pint when some grand lady turned to him and told him the Guinness family had been very good to the people of Dublin. Brendan Behan put down his pint and replied the people of Dublin have been very good to the Guinness family. That just about sums up the corporate social responsibility and alcohol production. They make a lot of money from us and the point that we are paying €3.7 billion per year, or €3,318 per income taxpayer, means we are paying a very high cost for very cheap booze.

My final point is that in the past with previous Governments, a partnership approach has been taken to public health policy-making. We have mutually reconcilable aims and I will not dress this up in a public relations spin. We seek to reduce alcohol consumption and we seek to reduce alcohol-related harms, which are costing this country €3.7 billion per year, even before one gets to the human costs. We have mutually reconcilable aims on that. As for drinking responsibly and how Ms Garth, when asked, would not state that less alcohol would mean a better Ireland, it would. It would mean fewer alcohol-related harms. What is responsible? It is whatever one is having oneself. Define what is responsible. It is the language of morality instead of the language of specifics. Members are legislators. Will they hand over their legislative role to voluntary codes? They have an opportunity to make a real difference for the future. They should introduce the legislation that will make the difference.

Dr. Bobby Smith

In response to Deputy Byrne's suspicion that drink is a key stepping stone for those who venture into drug use, my day job is in a clinical service for young people who have a range of drug and alcohol problems. We have just done a survey of young people who have used cocaine. We found that 70% of those who have used cocaine first did so while intoxicated on alcohol. Because so many young people are being cultivated to see intoxication as an utterly normal route to socialising, unfortunately, a growing minority is choosing to use the menu of illegal intoxicants available to them. I gave a talk last night to parents in a secondary school and my advice to them is that the biggest thing they can do and we can do, as a society, to reduce drug use is to delay and curtail alcohol use by young people.

Chairman

I thank the delegates for attending. We have had a long, invigorating, challenging and provocative session. There is a clear commonality among the groups about the issue of minimum pricing, which the committee may have to examine. There are differences about how we implement policy but we have a responsibility and a duty to make a report, which we will do. The issue of the over consumption and the use of alcohol is a priority on our agenda. I thank the delegates for attending, giving up their time and engaging in a thorough and mature discussion about this topic.

The joint committee went into private session at 2.55 p.m. and adjourned at 3 p.m. until 11.30 a.m. on Thursday, 17 November 2011.