Crackdown on alcohol advertising a 'whitewash'

THE Department of Health's forthcoming crackdown on alcohol advertising was a "whitewash," an alcohol expert said yesterday.

Psychiatrist Dr Conor Farren said there needed to be a total ban on drink advertising and a ban on drink sponsorship at any sport or youth event.

"The Department of Health is due to publish a code of practice in the New Year about the regulation of drinks advertising and it is currently planning a whitewash, with no meaningful restrictions on current practices and no legislation to be forthcoming," he said.

The department's code of practice will:

Ban daytime television alcohol advertisements.

Restrict outdoor alcohol advertisements.

Ban sponsorship of youth leisure activities.

The new legislation will not ban sponsorship of all sporting events by drinks companies and may not include mandatory health warnings on alcohol products.

Dr Farren, chairman of the Substance Misuse Faculty of the Irish College of Psychiatrists, said the department was being influenced by drinks companies.

He said this included the work of MEAS (Mature Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society), which he said was not independent as it was funded by the industry.

"The unhealthy combination of political disinterest plus massive spending by the drinks industry on this campaign is designed to leave the industry alone to promote alcohol with little or no restriction.

"What this promotion has achieved over the past 10 years is frightening: an increase in alcohol consumption of 4%, making us the worst binge drinkers in Europe, and the second highest consumers of alcohol overall," Dr Farren claimed.

Dr Farren, who is also a consultant addiction psychiatrist at St Patrick's Hospital in Dublin, said this paralleled a 45% rise in the suicide rate, an alcohol death toll of 1,500 a year and an overall cost to society of more than €2 billion a year.

Minister of State for Health, Sean Power said last week he hoped the code of practice encourage people to drink responsibly.