Drink Bill contains ‘moderate measures’
Madam Editor,
In response to Grace Larkin’s Straight Talking ‘Putting alcohol behind curtains won’t work’ I wish the opportunity to correct a number of aspects in the piece published.
Perhaps you will consider the following piece, as a Right to Reply: The Public Health (Alcohol) Bill will save lives, reduce harms, alleviate health services and release scarce public funds for greater socio-economic benefit. For over 650 days the Public Health (Alcohol) Bill - a progressive piece of legislation designed to significantly and positively alter Ireland’s harmful relationship with alcohol – has languished in the Oireachtas and faced inordinate delay. Alcohol Action Ireland does not ‘claim’, as your correspondent suggests, but states the factual data that shows Ireland has become the 4th heaviest drinking OECD nation in terms of quantity of alcohol consumed and ranks joint third for binge drinking in an analysis of 194 nations by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Furthermore, the opinion of your correspondent on impulsive purchasing is incorrect; Nielsen, the world’s leading consumer market researcher who “understand the importance of knowing what consumers watch and buy” have stated that 37% of wine purchasing decisions are made in-store.
Alcohol consumption in Ireland has grown threefold in two generations. In 2016, our consumption of alcohol rose by a further 4.8% to 11.46 litres of pure alcohol per capita, that’s is equal to 46 bottles of vodka, 130 bottles of wine, or 498 pints of beer. The Bill contains a range of modest measures on price, labelling, advertising and separation of alcohol products, designed to work together to reduce alcohol consumption in Ireland by 25% over seven years (that’s 3.5% per annum per capita) so lessening alcohol related harm. It will protect children, families and communities from alcohol related harms, and create an environment that supports a low risk approach to individual consumption.
Today, we face a growing chronic disease crisis as cancer, heart disease, liver disease and diabetes now accounts for the most of our ill-health and premature deaths - every day 3 people will die from alcohol related illnesses. This crisis places an extraordinary, and unnecessary, burden on our scarce health services and limited public resources. The annual cost of alcohol related hospital discharges to the Irish exchequer: €1.5bn, that is 3% of all public current expenditure; €2.35bn, assessing a wider set of cost implications to other aspects of impact to current public expenditure in Justice, Children, Social Protection. Meanwhile, the crisis in our A&Es grows worse, as hard-working Doctors and Nurses in Sligo University Hospital grapple the nightly carnage stimulated from our highrisk consumption of alcohol. Alcohol is contributing to the development of mental health problems as well as exacerbating pre-existing mental health difficulties. It can affect our ability to cope, manage and to overcome everyday stresses and significant life events. Alcohol is a factor in half of all suicides, and one third of self-harm cases, in Ireland.
The market will not resolve our problem with alcohol; the state must have the right to protect its citizens, especially its children - each year 60,000 children will inexcusably begin their, all too early, drinking careers. International agencies and evidence-based research dictates that action must be taken to bolster Public Health initiatives that aim to curb our high-risk alcohol consumption, and where the interests of private economic forces collide with advancing public health we must be able to rebalance those rights to allow for pragmatic public intervention
Yours faithfully,
Eunan McKinney Head of Communications and Advocacy Alcohol Action Ireland Coleraine House, Coleraine Street, Dublin 7.