The head of a teachers' union told delegates that it was not unusual for a 16-year-old to drink eight pints of Heineken and four vodkas with Red Bull on a night out.
Mr Pat Cahill, president of the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland, said young people had told him this was normal. This indicated there was a "major problem" with alcohol, he said.
Mr Cahill agreed with the Fine Gael TD, Mr Phil Hogan, that not all young people were binge drinking but he attributed the problem to the cynical targeting of young people by advertisers, the decline in family life, and absent fathers.
He also said young people were prepared to take the pledge and that there was a lack of leadership in society. Some teachers had attributed the revelations from the tribunals of inquiry as giving bad example to young people, he said. Given the revelations, they asked whether people should be surprised that young people were drinking. Mr Damien Enright TD, who chaired the session on alcohol, said he recognised the problem but it was not confined to young people.
Stating that he had worked in a pub for 10 years, Mr Enright said: "There were plenty of men in their 50s and 60s, and women, that I've often served 15 pints to and they didn't regard it as a problem."
He also attributed some of the increase in drinking by young people to the fact that they were going out less and confining their drinking to weekend sessions. "If they do go out to drink, they do a right job of it," he said.
Mr Jim McCabe, of the National Off-Licence Association, said at the debate that responsibility for addressing the problem lay with parents as educators in the home. Mr Denis Naughten TD said he was not in favour of a reduction in the minimum legal drinking age or an increase. The Garda did not have enough resources to police under-age drinking with the current age limits, he said.
