Revealed: launch date of our alcohol ad-free zones

ALCOHOL advertisements will be banned within 200m of schools, creches and playgrounds from next November.

The Government will today reveal its schedule of when the different elements of the new Alcohol Bill will come into force, right up to 2021.

From November 12, 2019, alcohol advertising on trains and buses, and in transport stations, will be banned, as will advertising drink within 200m of a school, creche or a local authority playground.

After that date, it will also become illegal to advertise alcohol in a cinema unless the films are classified as over-18s. It will also become illegal to sell clothing aimed at children or teenagers which promotes alcohol.

The rules around alcohol displays in shops will take effect on November 12, 2020 – introducing much tighter rules on how drinks companies can promote themselves in supermarkets and corner shops, and drinks will have to be kept in a part of the shop that is separate from other products.

From November 12, 2021, it will be illegal to advertise alcohol ‘on a sports area during a sporting event, at events aimed at children or at events in which the majority of participants are children’.

From that date in 2021 it will be illegal for events aimed at children to be sponsored by alcohol brands, as well as being prohibited at events which ‘the majority of participants are children’.

Alcohol advertising at motor racing events will also be banned on the same day – to sever the link between drinking and driving.

Health Minister Simon Harris has hailed this as a ‘groundbreaking measure’ as it is the ‘first time in the history of our State that we have endeavoured to use public health legislation to address issues in respect of alcohol’.

‘For the very first time in our history, we are legislating for alcohol as it affects our health and it is right and proper that we do so,’ Mr Harris said.

‘We know that we have a relationship with alcohol in this country that is not good, damages our health, harms our communities and harms many families. The measures in this Bill will make a real difference to changing the culture of drinking in Ireland over a period of time.’

The controversial Bill was finally passed in the Dáil last month after more than 1,000 days of debate. And this new schedule, empowered by the Alcohol Act, will see a number of measures eventually becoming law including mandatory unit pricing and the separation of alcohol for sale in shops.

A spokeswoman for Mr Harris confirmed that he has signed the orders to commence 23 sections of the Bill ‘into operation’.

While the Act is broad ranging, a provision that there be explicit warnings that alcohol can cause cancer were dropped from the legislation after the summer recess.

Mr Harris said the Bill had received ‘very lengthy consideration’.

The measures’ passing last month was greeted with applause from TDs.

‘A groundbreaking measure’