People who see publicans or the owners of off-licences selling alcohol to minors or serving customers already drunk may soon be able to report them to the authorities through a special hotline - if the recommendations of a task force set up by the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, are acted on. Eithne Donnellan reports.
The Strategic Task Force on Alcohol, set up in 2002, yesterday produced its second report which makes 78 recommendations to curb worrying levels of alcohol consumption in the Republic.
It wants a hotline similar to the traffic watch scheme to encourage communities to blow the whistle on those breaching liquor licensing laws. It has also recommended that national sporting bodies such as the GAA "develop a proactive strategy" to find an alternative to alcohol sponsorship.
And it wants the Government to ask the Competition Authority or the Director of Consumer Affairs to investigate why non-alcohol drinks are so expensive in pubs compared to alcoholic drinks even though they carry no excise duty.
Other recommendations, as reported earlier this week in The Irish Times, include a call for increased taxes on alcohol, for a restriction on any further increase in the physical availability of alcohol by not allowing new shops to sell alcohol, and for under 18s to be prohibited from working in bars except for when they are part of a family who run the premises.
The task force has also recommended that labels on alcohol products should carry a health warning and list details of the drink's calorie content and all ingredients. Furthermore, it recommends the sale of alcohol at events organised for children or largely attended by children be discouraged and that employers be required to have alcohol policies in the workplace.
In addition, it says adequate and accessible alcohol/drugs counselling services should be provided in each health board region. But it stops short of calling for a total ban on alcohol advertising. Instead it says the proposed legislation to reduce children's exposure to alcohol advertising, sponsorship and promotions should be enacted without delay.
Mr Martin, who was presented with a copy of the report, said this legislation was being drafted and would provide for the introduction of a series of regulations to limit the content in alcohol advertising. He said there would be "legal issues" with a total ban.
On reducing alcohol consumption, he said the fact that consumption in the State declined for the first time in over 16 years in 2003, when it went down by 6 per cent, showed what could be achieved when taxes on alcohol rose, in combination with other measures.