Drink link to suicide - Sponsorship ban urgent

Pressure is inexorably mounting on this Government to ban all alcohol advertising of sport events. Echoing the timely warnings of Geoffrey Shannon, the Coalition’s special rapporteur on child protection, another stark alert has been sounded by a leading suicide expert.

According to Prof Ella Arensman, the Government’s slow reaction to society’s love affair with booze will cost lives unnecessarily through suicide. As director of research at the National Suicide Research Foundation, the UCC-based academic is an authority on the subject. In contrast with our politicians, she knows what she is talking about.

In common with other critics of the Coalition’s 2020 ‘target’ for a ban on sports sponsorship by alcohol firms, she has expressed disappointment, saying: “That would be far too late.” If the administration turns a deaf ear to such bleak warnings, ‘deadline’ would be a more appropriate word because such a delay will claim many victims of alcohol abuse.