BREATHALYSERS are being used on young revellers at a County Monaghan under 18 nightclub after a bus from Fermanagh arrived carrying a highly intoxicated 16-year-old boy who had to be transferred to Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry.


Junior Switch nightclub in Castleblayney is a relatively new venue for 14 to 18 year olds. It will hold its seventh event this weekend for Valentine’s Day and expects to reach its full capacity of 1,000. 


Attracting young people from Fermanagh, Tyrone, Armagh and Monaghan, the club has a zero tolerance on alcohol but has found that the young disco-goers are trying many avenues to access alcohol.


Bus drivers who may allow young teens to drink alcohol on the way to the club are banned by the club owners. 


Eight verified bus companies are given a quota of tickets for each event. 
For example, for this Friday night’s Valentine’s Ball, 100 tickets have been given to one Fermanagh travel company.


“We have chosen eight bus companies to work with. We have supplied breathalysers to those buses so that anyone who looks to be drunk on arrival at the bus will be refused access. 
"We will also place stewards on those buses” said a spokesman for Junior Switch nightclub.


The man, who has years of experience in running junior discos, said a bus from one Fermanagh village had been blocked. He said: "The child landed here and he was passed out on the bus. Luckily we have paramedics on site. The Red Cross have two ambulances here. They had to take him to Daisy Hill. I went over to that bus driver and told him he was never allowed back.
“That’s what you’re dealing with. There are certain things that are out of our control. We had eight incidents outside our last event, all caused by people who weren’t allowed in because they had been drinking. We are aiming for zero incidents.”


He continued: “We decided to become a ticketed event because we were having 1,400 people showing up and were turning away hundreds of young people. We sell 150 tickets locally too and those people enter through a different door than those arriving by bus. If they look intoxicated, they are breathalysed at the door.”


The club is working closely with the gardai who know where the buses are coming from and have stopped some in the past. 
“If we find they have been allowing young people to drink, they will no longer get tickets from us. If a young person sneaks drink onto a bus, the bus could be stopped by gardai and that person will be responsible for a 50-seater coach being turned away at the Border,” the spokesman warned.


The club owner fears that some parents are not taking the issue seriously. “I’ve posted warnings on facebook about getting breathalysed on site and the parents have been tagging their children in it saying ‘ha ha’.”


Locally, the PSNI are aware of drinking on buses to various venues.
 Chief Inspector Roy Robinson told The Impartial Reporter: “Police in Fermanagh would remind operators of private hire buses that it is an offence to permit passengers to consume alcohol on the vehicles. 
"The end product is that passengers arrive at their destinations in an intoxicated condition and get involved in assaults, disputes or other anti-social behaviour. 


"In various parts of Northern Ireland and across the border, a number of venues attract bus loads of young people, many of them under the age of 18, to their functions. 


"In the past, Police have seized a considerable amount of alcohol from young people who had intended to take it onto coaches on their way from Fermanagh to a function elsewhere. It cannot be acceptable for young people in particular to consume alcohol in an uncontrolled manner. We have the powers to inspect buses for alcohol and we will do this, seize the alcohol and prosecute the drivers.”