Madam, - Dara Kennedy (December 29th) points out the difficulty of finding a lasting solution to Ireland's under-age drinking, while Dervila Cooke, on the same page, talks of the need to find suitable places for youth activities such as motorcycle scrambling.
What is required is investment in every Irish county for year-round stimulating diversions - and with a policy of "at your own risk" rather than the current hobbling insurance concerns.
Every Irish town should have its indoor sports hall with a skateboard park, a music club fitted with an amateur recording studio, a theatre, and so on.
Only with such enticements could teenagers occupy themselves less destructively and discover otherwise latent talents. - Yours, etc.
NIALL O'DONOGHUE,
Narva,
Finland.
Madam, - I was dismayed at the blatant sexism of a recent TV advertisement from the Health Promotion Unit condemning alcohol abuse among young women.
The ad portrays a young schoolgirl walking down a school corridor. Her drunkenness and subsequent vomiting on the previous night out is shown in a series of flashbacks. The ad ends with her male fellow pupils sneering: "You should have seen the state of her last night!"
This ad does nothing to tackle the crisis of alcohol abuse in this country. Young men may feel they have the right to comment disparagingly about women and girls in such a state, yet many will still take advantage, themselves very often in a state of stupor.
Such advertising needs to be more balanced in its approach.
Many young women are indeed guilty of consuming vast quantities of alcohol. However, sexist mudslinging is not the way to encourage teenagers to control their intake.- Yours, etc.,
JANE COFFEY,
Deerpark,
Carrick-on-Suir,
Co Tipperary.