Access to alcohol - Why is it so very easy to buy drink?

THE devastating impact of alcohol abuse on our society is as well documented as it is tragic. What was once granted a grudging tolerance is becoming a huge social and health issue.

The Health Research Board published figures late last year that are chilling in the way they articulate our deepening relationship with drink.

Alcohol-related deaths have doubled in a decade; one in 33 hospital beds is used because someone had an accident or is sick because of drink.

The full impact is far worse as the figures do not include the thousands treated in A&E for alcohol-related incidents but who are not admitted to hospital. Between 1995 and 2004, hospital admissions for alcohol-related illnesses or injuries increased by 90%, the number of bed days taken up rose by 110%.

There are about 17,000 admissions a year, taking up more than 117,000 bed days — about 3% of the total.

Add to those soaring figures the fact that Ireland has been ranked as the fourth worst country in the EU for alcohol-related road deaths by the European Transport Safety Council. The proportion of road deaths because of drink driving is highest in Sweden at 34%, we are in fourth place at 28.2%. The report also pointed out that we have the highest drink-driving alcohol limit in Europe, at 80 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.

Add to those indictments, as if it they were not enough, the alarm bells ringing in connection with young women and excessive drinking.

While women account for 25% of all the hospital admissions in relation to drink, they make up almost half (47%) of all the under-18s admitted because of drink, according to the Health Research Board.

In this context it is hard to understand why 637 new off-licences were permitted to open last year — on top of the 547 opened in 2006. It does not suggest that we are committed to a policy of prevention rather than cure, management rather than response.

Many of these outlets are in supermarkets or service stations but the implication is clear — we are drinking at home more than ever before and we have far greater access to drink than ever before.

The smoking ban and our new attitude to drink and driving have contributed to this, as they have to the much-lamented demise of the rural pub. It is a significant cultural shift and one that will undoubtedly claim more than its share of victims.

After all the bed at the top of the stairs does not represent the same kind of deterrent to excessive drinking as the car outside the pub door. Add a considerable degree of social isolation to the equation and you have potential for real, human tragedy.

In any event such a tremendous proliferation of off-licence outlets suggests that we are turning a blind eye to the implications of such easy and universal access to drink even though every Monday morning newspaper carries the tragic stories of unnecessary deaths on the roads or through violence — very many rooted in excessive drinking.

Prevention is far better than a cure but opening two off-licences more or less every day in a country as small as this does not represent any real willingness to tackle the problem.

File, once again, under lip service and cant.