A Department of Health proposal to ban alcohol companies’ sponsorship of sports events has been questioned by other departments in their formal responses.
A draft memorandum drawn up by the department and Minister of State for Primary Care Alex White was circulated to other departments last month. The draft proposed a gradual phasing out of the drinks industry being involved in the sponsorship of sports. However, it did not propose to extend the ban to arts, cultural or musical events.
Other departments were expected to send in their responses by the middle of this month ahead of the formal memorandum going to Cabinet at the end of this month.
It is understood that several Ministers, including Minister for Transport and Sport Leo Varadkar, and Minister for Arts and Culture Jimmy Deenihan, set out detailed arguments against the measure. A number of other Ministers, mainly from Fine Gael, are also said to be cool on the idea.
A senior Government source with knowledge of the process said yesterday that Ministers set out a number of grounds as to why a ban might not achieve the desired effect.
One of the arguments was that a similar ban in France had not worked.
A second posed a question about where sports and festivals would find alternative sponsors and would there be compensation if they failed to find alternatives, especially if the envisaged savings in the health budget materialised.
Source: Harry McGee, Irish Times, 18/06/2013
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