THE PRESIDENT, Mrs Robinson, has called for a change in attitudes to drinking. Speaking at the opening of the golden jubilee celebrations of Alcoholics Anonymous, the President issued a challenge to the organisation's 11,000 members to help change what she described as Ireland's "careless attitude to something which can destroy both an individual and a family".
Addressing the AA convention in the Burlington Hotel, Dublin, on Saturday night, she said: "More young people are drinking and they are getting younger - 12 year old and 13 year old children are now taking drink. It is a problem we have to tackle in an Irish way.
"For you, this golden jubilee is a year of simply taking stock, but the truth is we need your strength to change attitudes in Ireland.
"We accept alcohol in a sort of loose way as part of our culture. When we socialise, we have a drink. We meet in pubs. We are proud of the fact that Irish people are more sociable than others. But it is a focus that has, at the heart of it, inducing people into a lifestyle that they may not be able to get out of."
Mrs Robinson read a letter from a personal friend, outlining her struggle to give up alcohol. "Alcoholics Anonymous gave me back the deeds of my life", the letter stated.
She paid tribute to the pioneering spirit of the founding members of the fellowship. AA, she said, was an example of genuine self help. "It is a collection of individual courage, resilience, openness and honesty. You represent a triumph of individual human spirit over tremendous personal odds."
Paying tribute to the organisation, the medical director of St Patrick's Hospital in Dublin, Dr Anthony Clare, said that AA was one of the pioneering self help organisations. "Its survival for 50 years is evidence of its contribution to society. Many of the great, famous and the ordinary owe their survival to it", he said.