Government may raise drinking age to 21: Sindo

[kerrynorth]

According to the Sindo the drinking age may be raised to 21 in forthcoming legislation. Also, it will be a criminal offence for a person under 21 to be found in possession of alcohol and householders will be held criminally liable if their property is used by under 21's for parties.

[hiding behind a poster]

According to the Sindo the drinking age may be raised to 21 in forthcoming legislation. Also, it will be a criminal offence for a person under 21 to be found in possession of alcohol and householders will be held criminally liable if their property is used by under 21's for parties.

How about kids' birthday parties?

[Catalpa]

Dumb Law and I would say unconstitutional.

I wonder what the outcry would be like if this was applied to the over 65s - on the basis of being too old to handle it?

An attack on Citizens Rights.

You cannot ask over 18s to behave like adults if you are not prepared to treat them as adults.

[kerrynorth]

According to the Sindo the drinking age may be raised to 21 in forthcoming legislation. Also, it will be a criminal offence for a person under 21 to be found in possession of alcohol and householders will be held criminally liable if their property is used by under 21's for parties.

How about kids' birthday parties?

Parties where alcohol is being consumed by U21's.

[kerrynorth]

Dumb Law and I would say unconstitutional.

Not at all. If government can set an arbitary age criteria at 18 then raising it to 21 poses no legal problems.

[Lulu84]

It seems stupid to me. Increased regulation of alcohol to curb abuse has never been particularly successful in this country, nor dare I say it, anywhere.

It's the Irish way, if we have a social problem let's criminalise it.

[owenfeehan]

That law would be completely completely idiotic. The whole Irish drinking problem stems from people not learning how to be responsible in their approach. The more you ban alcohol drinking, the more it pushes kids onto house-parties and streets and back-alleys with a vodka bottle, and the more you fuel anti-social behaviour and disenchantment amongst youths with government and police (who have the unfortunate task of enforcing the law). In addition, the more difficult you make it to purchase alcohol, the more cannabis becomes an appealing alternative - a lesson to be learnt from he US and Canada.

Look at other European countries, such as Germany, where the drinking age is 16, where drinking on the streets and public transport is perfectly legally, beer is taxed the same as a foodstuff, and despite being the one of the biggest alcohol-drinking countries in Europe, has almost no alcohol-related violence or thuggery in comparison to Ireland and the UK.

It's all a matter of cultural attitudes and individuals taking responsibility. What the government desperately needs to do is move alcohol from being a binge-drinking activity dictated by collective cultural tendency to drink too much, to an individual activity dictated by personal preference and personal resposibility.

- There needs to be fullscale liberalisation of laws on licensed premises, so people aren't forced into pubs (binge drinking dens, with little else on offer to do other than collective drinking) so as to have a drink. A drink in a cafe with some food, a drink while going to a film, a drink while watching a street act, a drink or two while listening to a top-quality DJ, a drink while bowling, a drink while watching a football match. This is the kind of culture we need to promote, instead of drinking for the sake of it.

- There needs to be fullscale liberalisation of closing time, so we don't have a practice of last-orders and getting tanked up before the masses are ejected onto the streets. Furthermore arbitrary-early-closing times effectively kill decent nightlife. Clubbing in Ireland isn't clubbing as most other countries would ever call it. Clubbing in Ireland is binge-drinking in large bars that happen to open later, and which most patrons are attracted to by demographics and trends rather than the type of music, or cultural environment, or DJ who happens to be playing. When people are genuinely enjoying the environment and engaging in cultural activity (music, dancing etc.) they drink less. Going-out or clubbing without people getting drunk is a foreign concept to our cultural tendencies.

- The drinking age needs to be actively LOWERED to 16 so that the typical U18 teenager in Ireland who does drink (in spite of the law) isn't doing it on the sides of the street from a vodka bottle, and intimidating local residents, but is doing it in a more controlled and responsible environment. Unsurprisingly, teenagers will drink less in these circumstances, both because they are having a better time with music and dancing, but also because it will cost a lot more than an off-license.

In general, there needs to be a huge huge emphasis placed on creating avenues for social interactions, where people do not need to binge-drink or even drink much at all. We do do not have this in Ireland at present in Ireland. The only available outlets for most young people to socialise with friends and meet members of the opposite sex are pubs and nightclubs, which by virtue of restrictive licensing, inevitably push huge binge-drinking (witness how music is put on so loud that people can't even make decent conversation) more than it needs to be pushed.

The relationship between publicans and the Fianna Fail party is absolutely scandalous, typified most strikingly by the vetoing of the cafe-bar-proposals bill (an unquestionably sensible proposal) some years ago.

[FutureTaoiseach]

I agree with this but also believe it underlines the need for a national ID card.

[owenfeehan]

And the proposal will never happen btw. If FF wouldn't push cafe bars against the publican lobby, they haven't a notion of forcing through a law that would deprive them of hundreds of thousands of weekly customers.

It's talk designed to appeal to social conversatives on the right, nothing more.

[CookieMonster]

That law would be completely completely idiotic. The whole Irish drinking problem stems from people not learning how to be responsible in their approach. The more you ban alcohol drinking, the more it pushes kids onto house-parties and streets and back-alleys with a vodka bottle, and the more you fuel anti-social behaviour and disenchantment amongst youths with government and police (who have the unfortunate task of enforcing the law). In addition, the more difficult you make it to purchase alcohol, the more cannabis becomes an appealing alternative - a lesson to be learnt from he US and Canada.

Look at other European countries, such as Germany, where the drinking age is 16, where drinking on the streets and public transport is perfectly legally, beer is taxed the same as a foodstuff, and despite being the biggest alcohol-drinking countries in Europe, have almost no alcohol-related violence or thuggery in comparison to Ireland the UK.

It's all a matter of cultural attitudes and individuals taking responsibility. What the government desperately needs to do is move alcohol from being a binge-drinking activity dictated by collective cultural tendency to drink too much, to an individual activity dictated by personal preference and personal resposibility.

- There needs to be fullscale liberalisation of laws on licensed premises, so people aren't forced into pubs (binge drinking dens, with little else on offer to do other than collective drinking) so as to have a drink. A drink in a cafe with some food, a drink while going to a film, a drink while watching a street act, a drink or two while listening to a top-quality DJ, a drink while bowling, a drink while watching a football match. This is the kind of culture we need to promote, instead of drinking for the sake of it.

- There needs to be fullscale liberalisation of closing time, so we don't have a practice of last-orders and getting tanked up before the masses are ejected onto the streets. Furthermore arbitrary-early-closing times effectively kill decent nightlife. Clubbing in Ireland isn't clubbing as most other countries would ever call it. Clubbing in Ireland is binge-drinking in large bars that happen to open later, and which most patrons are attracted to by demographics and trends rather than the type of music, or cultural environment, or DJ who happens to be playing. When people are genuinely enjoying the environment and engaging in cultural activity (music, dancing etc.) they drink less. Going-out or clubbing without people getting drunk is a foreign concept to our cultural.

- The drinking age needs to be actively LOWERED to 16 so that the typical U18 teenager in Ireland who does drink (in spite of the law) isn't doing it on the sides of the street from a vodka bottle, and intimidating local residents, but is doing it in a more controlled and responsible environment. Unsurprisingly, teenagers will drink less in these circumstances, both because they are having a better time with music and dancing, but also because it will cost a lot more than an off-license.

In general, there needs to be a huge huge emphasis placed on creating avenues for social interactions, where people do not need to binge-drink or even drink much at all. We do do not have this in Ireland at present in Ireland. The only available outlets for most young people to socialise with friends and meet members of the opposite sex are pubs and nightclubs, which by virtue of restrictive licensing, inevitably push huge binge-drinking (witness how music is put on so loud that people can't even make decent conversation) more than it needs to be pushed.

The relationship between publicans and the Fianna Fail party is absolutely scandalous, typified most strikingly by the vetoing of the cafe-bar-proposals bill (an unquestionably sensible proposal) some years ago.

I *heart* owenfeehan's post.