Leo Varadkar’s high-minimum-price alcohol proposal punishes responsible drinkers
Mr Varadkar seems not to understand that legislation to curb excessive and underage drinking has received Cabinet approval many times over many years, but has never been enforced.
In 2000, an Oireachtas sub-committee investigation found that our licensing laws needed to be modernised in line with public expectation and demand. It was agreed, after consultation with interest groups and the public, to do away with restrictive legislation governing access to the drinks market.
Why drag us back to restrictive practices and high prices? Why should responsible consumers be deprived of reasonably priced alcohol, because of government failure to enforce its own legislation?
Penal minimum prices for alcohol will encourage many consumers to purchase their alcohol across the border or across the Irish Sea. These proposals will only benefit special interest groups, again.
Those of us on fixed incomes, and those of us who are older, will be forced to pay prices that are out of reach. The solution is more vigilant parenting and rigid enforcement of the current laws. Why should moderate drinkers, who make up the vast majority, suffer for the State’s failure to enforce the current law on alcohol sales? I do not subscribe to the notion that increasing prices, thereby restricting availability, will deter young people from securing alcohol.
I would back the ingenuity of teenagers who want alcohol over any Oireachtas Committee set up to thwart them.
Like all responsible people, I would like to see an end to underage and anti-social-drinking and the social ills that accompany these scourges, but it is wrong to scapegoat everyone for the irresponsible behaviour of the few.
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