Alcohol consumption falls slightly but still higher than 2013 level

A national charity for alcohol-related issues has warned that while a report has shown Ireland’s alcohol consumption has decreased slightly, it is still higher than the level recorded in 2013.

Alcohol Action Ireland made the comments following the issuing of a report commissioned by the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland which states that alcohol consumption per adult decreased by 0.7% in 2015 compared with 2014.

The study, carried out by economist Anthony Foley of Dublin City University’s Business School, found the average Irish adult consumed 11.086 litres per annum (lpa) last year compared to 11.013 lpa in 2014. The level recorded in 2015 is still higher than the 10.6 lpa noted in 2013.

Mr Foley used the CSO population and migration estimates and Revenue Commissioners’ alcohol clearances to reach his findings.

Conor Cullen of Alcohol Action Ireland said the charity welcomed the “slight” reduction in alcohol consumption, but warned that a further, significant reduction was required.

“Though our consumption is down from its all-time high of over 14 litres per capita, the trend is not moving steadily downwards and our alcohol consumption remains higher now than in 2013, as this report points out,” he said.

“At our current level of 11 litres, we not only retain very high levels of alcohol consumption, but our culture of binge drinking exacerbates the harm.”

Mr Cullen said three people die every day in Ireland due to alcohol, and that it is responsible for taking up 1,500 hospital beds every night.

Mr Cullen said the Public Health (Alcohol) Bill will tackle Ireland’s harmful relationship with alcohol.

The Public Health (Alcohol) Bill aims to reduce Ireland’s per capita alcohol consumption to the OECD average of 9.1 litres for every person aged 15 and over by 2020.

However, Mr Foley said that using the OECD average as a target is “not appropriate”.

“The OECD database includes far distant and culturally specific countries such as Turkey and Israel with very low alcohol consumption around 2.6 and 1.4 lpa respectively and several other countries with low-ish consumption such as Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico, and USA,” said Mr Foley.

“The non EU countries in the database have an average consumption of 7.1 lpa.

“The 21 EU members included in the OECD database have an average consumption of 9.9 compared to the 10.6 recorded in the database for Ireland. Ireland is not widely out of line with this.”.