The Minister for Justice has launched a scathing attack on the Ibiza Uncovered culture of "bombarding" young people with messages promoting drunkenness.
Mr McDowell said families and educators had to inculcate in young people a sense of dignity and self-worth and to show that getting drunk was not "cool". They also had to counter the "fun" image of drunkenness depicted in the Ibiza Uncovered programme and in recent events in Faliraki.
Faliraki, a resort on the Greek island of Rhodes, has been at the centre of controversy over hedonistic and alcohol-fuelled behaviour by young British holidaymakers.
"There has to be a countervailing message that it's not cool to damage your liver, that it's extremely uncool to be stomach-pumped at age 16 or 17, and to expose yourself to sexual predation by others is not a lifestyle that is attractive," Mr McDowell said in Dublin yesterday.
The Minister was addressing a conference on alcohol and society, organised by MEAS (Mature Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society), a drinks industry-funded group promoting responsible consumption of alcohol.
Schools and parents had a strong duty to get across the message that alcohol was not "the gateway to some superficial happiness", he said.
The present review of the liquor licensing laws is likely to favour the emergence of small, neighbourhood pubs, the Minister hinted.
He said he would like to see a return to smaller premises and this could be achieved by making it easier for smaller operators to obtain licences.
The requirement to extinguish an existing licence before a new licence can be granted also needed to be reconsidered. This had not limited alcohol consumption and had produced undesirable side-effects.
"Scarcity had created an artificial market in licences. The resulting large premises created noise and nuisance for residents and made controls on underage drinking more difficult to enforce."
Mr McDowell said the distinction between pubs and other forms of recreational consumption such as restaurants and cafés was too rigid. This had given rise to the notion of places that were "for drink and only for drink". People should be able to eat and drink beer in the same café, for example.
Dr Chris Luke, a consultant in accident and emergency medicine at Cork University Hospital, told the conference that alcohol accounted for 75 per cent of accident and emergency admissions after midnight in Irish hospitals.
The alcohol-influenced violence of patients was corrosive for hospital staff, he said, and had contributed to the huge loss of staff in recent years.
However, the most "frightening and sinister" factor behind drink was the "onslaught" of problems caused by the consumption of cocaine, he said.
Cocaine was the cause of "unbelievable violence" and health problems and was not in any sense benign, Dr Luke said. "It creates heart attacks in 25-year-olds, collapsed lungs in 23-year-olds and strokes in 19-year-olds."
Dr Luke said caring for patients was "a moral vocation, not servitude".
However, this vocation was being crushed under the weight of "boundless and unbridled consumerism".
