Teenage discos have become “highly sexualised” and are in need of “proper child safeguarding” measures, according to Alcohol Forum Ireland (AFI).

On Newstalk Breakfast today, AFI CEO Paula Leonard said teenage discos are an essential part of a young person’s life, but security to stop underage drinking is a “light touch”.

It follows a new report in the UK that shows 35% of girls and 34% of boys have drunk alcohol before the age of 11.

'Highly sexualised'

Ms Leonard said security at teenage discos has become more lax in Ireland over the years.

“I think the teenage disco has become a rite of passage for young people in Ireland moving to adulthood and has been a staple of their recreational and social life if you go back to the 1970s,” she said.

“Since about 2004, the legislation changed and there was a loophole that permitted children to be on licensed premises for under-18s events, as long as alcohol was not being sold at the same time.

“That has created the conditions for these very large scale, loosely supervised, highly sexualised, risky environments for people.”

Action

Ms Leonard is calling on Government to take action.

“There’s no requirement on venues to have child safeguarding,” she said.

“What we’re saying to Government now - 20 years on from bringing forward the intoxicating liquor bill - you do have the chance to regulate effectively these events and you do have an opportunity to put in place proper safeguarding."

A teenager drinking alcohol.

She also said the scale of teenage discos and the lack of security were of particularly concerning from a child safety view.

“The parish has never accommodated up to 2,500 young people aged between 11 and up to 17 in the same premises [like nightclubs have],” she said.

“There is very light touch supervision, light touch security, and no mandated adult-to-child ratios.

“If I run a sporting club, if I’m involved in childcare, education, youth work, any of those settings – I have very specific adult-to-child ratios.”

Important

Ms Leonard isn’t looking to have teenage discos “regulated out of existence”.

“We’re actually saying they’re really important,” she said.

“But what we have is an absolute blind spot in Irish policy in relation to teenage discos.

“There’s no mandated age that you need to be to access these venues and we need to be sensible.”

A study conducted in 2018 found that 82% of children in Ireland had drunk alcohol by the time they turned 17.

Main image: Teenagers drinking alcohol. Image: Image Source Limited / Alamy Stock Photo