The Irish are amongst the biggest boozers on the planet, according to a minister in the country's own government.

The Arts and Heritage Minister, Mary Coughlan, told a summer school that drinking cost the nation's economy millions of pounds a year.

When the Irish got drunk, she said, they fought, crashed cars, beat up their spouses and children, fell over and missed days at work.

Miss Coughlan pointed out that in contrast to other Western European countries, alcohol intake in Ireland was continuing to increase.

European record

The typical Irishman consumes more than 31 gallons of beer every year - twice the average figure for the European Union.

The minister says drink is costing Ireland millions of pounds in lost productivity, health care, ruined lives and premature deaths.

Miss Coughlan hopes her speech to a summer school in County Donegal will have a suitably sobering effect.

If the Irish really cleaned up their act, she told her audience, just think what they could achieve.