 I am half Latvian and the Ryanair flights have enabled me to visit the homeland of my father and grandparents as well as meeting relatives in Riga that I never knew I had. Stag parties are a problem wherever you go ( possibly as it involves men!! ), Dublin, Edinburgh and other main cities accross Europe have the same issues. I found we preferred to visit in the week as it is the weekends that attract such groups and yes, they aren't pleasant. I think the minister in question needs to review his comments as these people are travelling from Liverpool but are not necessarily resident there - I travel from Cheshire for example. Liverpool, like any city, has a wide spectrum of "types" of people; ranging from highly respectable to the down right embarressing - to tar a whole city ( which is crammed full of it's own theatres, galleries, highly respected Universities, libraries etc, can boast sons and daughters who have attained acclaim in many fields both in the UK and internationally and is currently the "city of culture" for the UK )with the same brush is quite offensive. I don't come from Liverpool but have visited on many occasion - it has, like Riga, Talin and any other town or city, it's good and bad bits. While in Latvia I saw the same is true - "normal" respectable folk going around their business as well as groups of Latvian teenagers drinking in the street and causing trouble and extremely pained people begging by the market - this happens anywhere humans do - Liverpool, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Milan - everywhere in between and beyond and hasn't caused me to assume that this is the norm for Riga - at least I hope it isn't!. Another example - my friend visited Prague and was offered cocaine openly in the street by several locals!!! this has never happened to either of us in our home town and was quite shocking. This gentleman is showing himself to be narrow minded and quite ignorant. Another way to avoid such behaviour might be to ask the pubs and clubs selling the cheap beer and liquor to act responsibly and not sell to people who are already inebriated and to activley discourage it - I think you will find that a lot of these idiots, I mean men, are quite different when sober and after they return from the traditional drunken stag night ( which has only relatively recently become a weekend ) they are returning to their responsible jobs, wives ( who would be mortified to know the way that they had been up to!! ), their neat homes etc etc. ( not all of them - a certain % will actually be idiots! )alcohol is an awful drug and really changes a persons personality - I hardly ever partake and avoid many places on a Friday or Saturday night as drunken people just aren't my thing. Yes, Riga needs to attract a different audience but vilantly attacking another city verbally isn't the answer and is in fact a little embaressing to Riga itself - attack isn't always the best form of defense!! I am also sure that the stag party culture, which Latvia also shares a portion of responsibility for attracting in the first place, is only a small problem compared to it's own local issues - just like anywhere else - and the Latvian people that I have spoken to personally have already highlighted a few of these to me - I won't hold it against you though as I am quite open minded!! 
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