Mayo members of the National Off-Licence Association (NOffLA ) have called on the Irish Government to introduce a mandatory training programme for all retailers of alcohol.
Celebrating the first anniversary of its innovative e-Learning Responsible Trading Certificate (RTC ) training programme, NOffLA reiterates its call on Government to introduce mandatory training for any retailer of alcohol.
John Maloney of Maloney's SuperValu in Mayo said: “The Government must wake up to this danger. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain from introducing mandatory training. Other sectors such as the building, delicatessen and transport areas require their staff to be fully trained and the same should apply to alcohol retailers. We simply must ensure that anyone who is in a position of responsibility like this is fully trained and fully aware of the potential dangers they operate in. Therefore the Government needs to make a stand; they need to deliver a meaningful, national and mandatory training programme.”
In June 2011, against the backdrop of falling membership rates, business closures, job losses, and decreased turnover, NOffLA developed and launched an online and interactive e-Learning training programme. The objective of this online offering was to ensure that members continued to be trained to responsibly retail alcohol without placing any additional cost burdens on their businesses as training can be delivered directly to the retailer at their place of work.
Since 2011, NOffLA has trained 269 employees from various off-licences across Ireland though the e-Learning programme. Over 1,000 have been trained in total since their original training programme was launched.
