AS IRELAND’S FIRST National Alcohol Awareness Week launches today, the Alcohol Forum has warned that the country’s legacy of harmful drinking and its impact on Irish children is a “national scandal”.

Today the organisation said that society often blames teenagers and young adults for our alcohol-consumed culture when they are only “practicing what they learn from their parents”.

Speaking to TheJournal.ie today, Chairman Pat Harvey said he would like to see every teenager in Ireland being asked by their parents what they think of their drinking.

“A lot of them would be perfectly comfortable about the answers they’d get but some of them might be surprised,” he said. “We’re not at the top of the league of the heaviest drinkers because of a few people drinking heavily, we’re at the top because a lot of people take a lot of drink.”