Time to take on alcohol industry

I WRITE to express appreciation for your editorial and the Alcohol and Ireland supplement (May 6).

You illustrate very clearly the many “ruinous” personal, health, crime and business implications of having become one of the world’s heaviest drinking nations.

But while we have come to realise the appalling consequences of the deregulation of the banking and financial sectors, it was the same government, which in 1992 released the alcohol industry from similar constraints, resulting in a 150% increase in off-sales outlets and the widespread marketing of alcohol targeted at young people.

That began our descent into “world-class” alcoholism. While pub sales have recently declined as you say, off-licence sales for home drinking of strong beers and wine have increased, as has the number of people presenting with alcohol problems, drinking by women and teenage binge-drinking.

Governments have since commissioned task forces to revue this issue and received similar advice — regulation of marketing, minimum pricing and tougher drink-driving laws will reduce alcoholism and save lives.

And to take issue with Coroner John Madden in your article, “the farmer with a few pints” is still a risk on the road. Part of rethinking our drinking is surely to conceive of a social life that doesn’t require excessive drinking.

As the Vinters Federation Ireland president Gerry Mellett said in a recent interview, publicans would also like, as in the less boozy French café culture, to offer better snacks and coffees and teas and soft drinks (ours currently being the most expensive in Europe, according to a Europa study) but the drinks suppliers won’t let them.

Previous governments have refused to take the advice of their own advisors in favour of appeasing the powerful alcohol industry lobby.

Let’s hope “the new team” are reading this Irish Examiner supplement.

Bev Cotton

Clonakilty

Co Cork