Madam, - Your Editorial of March 28th is commendable - and now is the time for action by the electorate. To change the state of "national collective state of denial" regarding the country's alcohol crisis, voters should question election candidates about their party's stance on the matter and vote appropriately.
This might awaken the political establishment to the urgent need to ditch vested interests in favour of an effective national alcohol policy that would benefit all the people. - Yours, etc,
Dr PASCAL O'DEA, Bagenalstown, Co Carlow.
Madam, - I have to disagree strongly with the thesis of your Editorial on alcohol and advertising. You state that it is clear that the current system of self-regulation is not working but you give no evidence to support your argument. The reality is that the current system is working very effectively. No complaints against alcohol advertising were upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority in either 2004 or 2005 (the latest year for which figures are available). And on the day before your Editorial, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland published its revised General Advertising Code which effectively endorsed the current system of self-regulation for alcohol advertising.
The Editorial was prompted by the publication of an Oireachtas committee report on the link between alcohol misuse and sports sponsorship. This report received quite a lot of attention in recent days but most of the attention was based on the press release accompanying it rather than on the report itself, which accepted that there was no causal link between the level of overall alcohol consumption and advertising and which could not find evidence to support the argument that a ban on advertising or sports sponsorship would work.- Yours, etc,
DÓNALL O'KEEFFE, Secretary, Drinks Industry Group of Ireland, Anglesea Road, Dublin 4