A bus hired to take young people from Derry to the DJ Hardwell gig in Belfast last week “resembled a mini off-licence,” Health Minister Edwin Poots has said.
DJ Hardwell.
Mr Poots was speaking in the Assembly in the wake of the of last Thursday night’s incident at the Odyssey Arena during which 17 young people were taken to hospital and around a hundred more treated by paramedics at the East Belfast venue for the effects of alcohol and drugs.
Mr Poots said those taken to emergency departments were aged 15, 16, 17 and 18.
He added: “None of them should have been drinking alcohol, and the drugs were illegal.” he said.
Responding to a request from Derry SDLP Foyle MLA Pat Ramsey to acknowledge the many thousands of young people who behaved “responsibly and maturely” at the concert, Mr Poots said the majority of young people in the North were “good young people.”
He added: “I was at an event on Saturday night with many young people who are going to Poland to help young people there who are in very needy circumstances.
“I was in conversation with someone from Mr Ramsey’s part of the world who had witnessed some young people getting onto a bus. He said that the amount of alcohol being loaded onto that bus resembled a mini off-licence.
“It was wholly irresponsible of the private coach hire company to allow that to happen. It is against the law, and it is the Department of the Environment’s responsibility to enforce it. We cannot continue with this attitude to alcohol. Our young people consume far too much of it.”
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