Alcohol excise ‘damaging tourism’

High levels of excise duty on alcohol in Ireland is damaging tourism and one of the country’s oldest industries Irish whiskey.

The CEO of Irish Distillers, Anna Malmhake, said that the punitive rate of excise being charged in Ireland means that tourists are not buying Irish whiskey and that it has become too expensive for the Irish.

“When I see more and more pubs go under, and when I see that we are actually punishing tourists and everyone else as well with the third highest excise duties in Europe, you sort of go a little bit desperate because that is one of our best ways of spreading the word about Irish whiskey. It doesn’t matter how many TV commercials we produce nothing beats someone having been here and having an affinity,” she said.