It was a great pleasure to attend an Oireachtas cross-party meeting this morning organised by the Irish Cancer Society and Alcohol Action Ireland. Last Friday evening, I held a public forum on threats to women's health. It was addressed by Ms Suzanne Costello, the chief executive of Alcohol Action Ireland, and the rock star of oncology, Senator John Crown. Both of them were adamant about the serious effects of alcohol on women's health. I have two key points for the Leader. On Friday and again this morning, Ms Costello spoke about huge increases in the past 50 years in the number of women drinking in Ireland. We all know about this. In my time, it was taboo for women to go into a pub and drink. They could smoke all they liked, but a woman did not drink in a pub.

Unfortunately.

That taboo has, however, faded away. Alcohol marketing campaigns are now focused on women, particularly on young women to make them look sexy. Ms Costello said that younger women tend to drink spirits rather than beer, leading to them to drink more units of alcohol on average than men of the same age. That is very serious.

The other key point and the bottom line at the meeting was the association between alcohol and breast cancer, which is really not on the radar. Drinking one standard alcoholic drink a day is associated with a 9% increase in the risk of a woman developing breast cancer, while drinking three to six standard drinks per day increases the risk by 41%. There is a national emergency; therefore, the message must be got out about how dangerous drinking is for women, particularly concerning breast cancer.