Young people are not being educated about the dangers of drink, says Dr Michael Loftus, well-known anti-alcohol campaigner and founder of Dothain, an organisation with about 500 members based in Castlebar, Co Mayo, which campaigns against alcohol abuse at all levels of society. "There are not enough programmes," he says. "There are very few of them. In most schools where I'm asked to talk they are not there. And they are not achieving enough."

Loftus is critical of the whole area of alcohol promotion, especially on television and in sport. "The message is going out the whole time. Youngsters see soccer players wearing jerseys carrying brand names in large lettering."

He questions the effectiveness of the recently proposed measures by Minister Tom Kitt to control the sale of alcopops. "In hard fact, this whole exercise is akin to removing a tumour from a gangrened limb," he wrote in a letter to The Irish Times last week. "What real effect will accrue to a vulnerable youth by the strength of the aclohol content being stated on a bottle? The real and huge problem still lies unaddressed. Mr Kitt's more powerful colleagues - in Justice, Health, Educaiton, Youth, Environment - have done, and still do, nothing about it. Smoking, yes. Heart disease, yes. AIDS, yes. Road deaths, yes. Pollution, yes. But, abuse of the drug alcohol, no!"

Bob Quinn recently "suspended" his membership of the RTE Authority in protest at the "frenzy" of advertising which will be directed at children on RTE over the next few weeks. On the question of drink, he told E&L last week that "we don't need commercials insofar as it's a cultural thing, we hardly need TV advertisements except to invite youngsters into it."

"Most of the commercials have a yuppie feel about them. I presume it's aimed at young people . . . I see no reason why drink should be advertised."