Speaking to the Sunday Tribune yesterday, Lenihan said he could see some legal difficulties with such a proposal but added: "If there is a medical case for it, it has to be looked at".

The minister said he had not yet been in a position to study in detail the comments of a leading expert in child and adolescent psychiatry, Professor David Schaffer, who last week called for Ireland's legal drinking age to be raised to 21. He said experience in the US showed this would be a way to achieve a quick and significant reduction in suicide rates among young people and would have a "long-lasting effect on alcohol use".

Lenihan said all the evidence suggested that the later a person started drinking, the better. But he stressed there could be some difficulties in the proposal to raise the legal drinking age from 18. "A person is an adult at the age of 18. They are entitled to vote. They have full civil freedom and are fully legally responsible, " he said.

Lenihan said he was anxious that the new Commission would have a wider remit than the previous one, which had a more "competition driven approach" and wasn't asked to look at the harmful effects of alcohol.