Plan to ban cheap drink sales steps up a gear

Plans are stepping up a gear to ban the sale of cheap alcohol as figures show that more than half of drinkers binge drink at least once a month.

Roisín Shortall, junior health minister, said she was confident of cross-government support for the ban that was part of her plan to tackle alcohol abuse.

She also said research was being commissioned to support a challenge likely to be taken against the introduction of a minimum pricing regime in Ireland.

She said the sale of cheap booze in supermarkets in particular was a “root cause” of the harmful drinking that was going on among young people and those who had a problem with alcohol.

The study, described by Ms Shortall as “very stark”, found that almost three-quarters of people aged 18 to 24 drank at least five standard drinks during one session. Almost a third of young people drank at least nine standard drinks in a single sitting — the equivalent of 4.5 pints of beer or 1.25 bottles of wine.

Ms Shortall said the health and mental health implications from such excessive alcohol consumption in one session were significant.

The survey, conducted by the National Advisory Committee on Drugs, also found that those classified as non-drinkers North and South had fallen from 19% to 13%.

The study also found that one in five drinkers said they had experienced harm in the previous 12 months as a result of their drinking.

Men were almost twice as likely as women to report harm, such as harm to health, work and friendship.

One in four people who took part in the survey claimed to have been hurt because of someone else’s drinking. Hurtful experiences included family problems, being assaulted and being a drunk driver’s passenger.

Ms Shortall, speaking at the launch of the survey in Dublin, said she was determined that effective steps would be taken to address the problem of alcohol misuse.

“Increased focus on the availability of cheap alcohol, excessive drinking and associated anti-social behaviour is awakening us to the realities of the situation and the need to do something about it,” she said.

Ms Shortall said she planned to bring proposals on tackling alcohol misuse to Government within weeks. However, she admitted that a 2016 deadline for phasing out alcohol advertising and promotions at sporting events had been “relaxed”.

She hoped sponsorship could be ended over a number of years in a reasonable way, being mindful that a number of sporting organisations had significant debts.

Asked about Diageo’s Arthur’s Day on Thursday, Ms Shortall said a problem was that having the “craic” was very often associated with consuming large quantities of alcohol. “We need to move towards a much more mature approach to life, where it is possible to enjoy what life has to offer without having to get tanked up beforehand.”

More than 7,500 people aged 15 to 64 took part in the all-Ireland survey conducted between Oct 2010 and May 2011.