The Minister for Children, Brian Lenihan, yesterday acknowledged that the publication of the report into the state of the nation's children had raised several issues of concern and was a "wake-up call" to society.
However, he said there were a lot of "very good statistics" in the report which showed that Irish children were very happy, and he added that the report would allow the Government to benchmark the state of children's lives in Ireland.
"Of course, there are areas of concern that we have to address," he said. "The fact that - among older children, among youths, among teenagers - we do have very high levels of binge-drinking and abuse is a serious problem."
He added: "Really, we have to keep up our fight against drug supply in this country, it is a very serious problem . . . the very large number of wealthier residents who now abuse drugs, for example, is directly sustaining the whole drugs industry."
Yesterday's report also revealed that, in 2002, one in four Irish children aged 11, 13 or 15 said that they had been bullied in the previous couple of months, compared with an average of 33.5 per cent in other countries.
Boys were also more likely to be bullied than girls, although there was little difference across social class categories.
The chief executive of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Paul Gilligan, yesterday warned that there can be difficulties in identifying bullying among children.
"If 25 per cent are identified as being bullied, it is likely that an awful lot more have been bullied but aren't coming forward," he said.
"Bullying is effectively part and parcel of most children's school lives at some point or another. The question is how does the school deal with it? I think we still have a journey to make in understanding, coping and intervention."