Alcohol sponsorship - Advertise responsibly

An attempt is to be made this evening at the annual convention of the Mayo GAA to ban alcohol sponsorship logos from the Mayo inter-county jersey.

Of course, there is no obvious advertising involved in this. For decades, tobacco companies advertised their cigarettes by sponsoring major events. This amounted to a kind of subliminal advertising. This country has a proud record in being one of the first countries to ban tobacco advertising, long before we blazed a further trail in banning smoking in the work place.

Alcohol and tobacco advertisers sought to make such practices glamorous. This was socially reckless, and society should be aware of the dangers.