I WENT to on a hen party to Magaluf recently.

Before this the last time I went was ten years ago.

But this time around we were older, more organised and the apartment was much nicer than where we stayed as teenagers, which back then slightly resembled the accommodation from the film The Hangover.

Magaluf was a regular destination for two-weeks solid every summer for me and the girls during the summer term.

Returning to the island with the same set of friends, many of them now married with children we knew that we were in for an eye-opening experience.

Without a doubt I love a good laugh and nothing much shocks me, but things have changed a lot since 2002.

Stopping off at the first bar, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

You couldn’t miss the ‘Happy Gas Company’– walking up and down with a tank of nitrous oxide strapped to their back - selling laughing gas in balloons to teenagers for just €5.

Considered as a legal high, the gas is served in balloons and has an affect similar to helium but makes you laugh uncontrollably.

I watched a girl, who looked no older than fifteen, inhale the gas before going into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, pulling ridiculous facial expressions.

She looked as though she was enjoying it (being on another planet) but looked absolutely ridiculous after she came back down to earth.

Another eye-opener was seeing the promotional-working teenage girls walking the streets in stockings and thongs, being groped by the blokes whilst offering the parties free shots, cocktails and discounted drinks.

All I could think of was ‘I wonder if your dad knows what you’re wearing’ and ‘will you be putting some clothes on before you walk home!’

Without a doubt I know that I’m looking at things differently being a decade older than the last time I went but I was genuinely worried for these kids taking drugs, lying in the street, getting caught up in fights and being arrested in a foreign country. 

The majority of us have been on a girls or lads holiday – but my advice to youngsters going to Magaluf or away with friends this summer ...BE CAREFUL!