Ireland is a grand old talking shop all the same, full of empty promises and turning a blind eye to what's really going on in our midst. How can we as a society get serious about tackling underage drinking and smoking when the very establishments that sell the stuff don't take it seriously themselves?

In a recent survey conducted on my 96FM radio show Cork off Licenses and shops performed abysmally, no, shamefully badly. With 9 out of 10 shops selling cigarettes to a 16 year old and 8 of ten off licenses chains selling beer or cider. Asking for ID was a non event in the vast majority of cases, in fact the lad buying the drink and cigarettes remarked that most of the staff actually seemed like they didn't give a damn, they seemed to have no interest in their jobs and were just passing the time. He said that many of them didn't even make eye contact. One woman was so disinterested that she ignored calls from other young fella's to ask our young "mystery shopper" for identification.

I don't buy the argument anymore that older people are buying booze for kids, it's apparent that if kids have the time they will have no problem getting as much drink as they want, all it takes is a little confidence and cash. Booze in off licenses and shops is so cheap these days that young people don't even need much money. Beer is cheaper than bottled water and cheap whiskey and vodka will set you back a little over a fiver. Some large retailers continue to brazenly advertise the likes of "buy one slab, get a second free", or "all beer half price this weekend".

The message is; here comes the weekend in Ireland, time to get mullered, especially is your 16. We as parents may care, but those licenses who sell the products don't. If they did they'd employ competent staff and train them properly. As a nation we are pathetic, Dail Eireann couldn't even pass legislation for a national identification scheme, the bleeding heart liberals who whinged on about civil liberties and all that rot bullied them into scrapping the idea. So now we stumble along with dozens of different id's, many faked, including other peoples passports and out of date photo id's and wonder why 100 teenagers gather in a field in Mayfield and the guards end up wading in by the dozen.

Kids drink in fields, bushes, free houses, even blatantly on the streets because they can; it's as simple as that. When off license and shops dole out fags and booze like smarties at a kid's party why should we be surprised? It would be simple to have a national ID system, and for every shop, off licence or bar to be forced by law to ask for identification from every under 23 year. I'm all for a good time and yes I was once sixteen but I have never witness such a lax approach to the sale of alcohol and tobacco to minors as I have in Ireland. On the continent it's more likely that you'll see a bunch of Italian teens sharing coffees, ice cream or pizza, In Cork its strongbow, dutchgold or gutrot vodka. Never even got to mention the que's of underage teens outside our nightclubs, rolling in with cash in their hot little hands, idles, to throw money over the bar counters only to fall out at 2 am, no-ones responsibility turning the city centre into a free for all zone. You can spend all the millions you want on creating a new city core, employ all the flashy Mediterranean architects you like to turn cork into a mockya Madrid, but it won't matter a damn if the place is a danger zone.