A mental health tax should be put on beer

This week Leo Varadkar will be proposing a Public Health Alcohol Bill which will set minimum pricing of alcohol products.

As part of this bill, I believe a health levy of 5% should be added to the price of all alcohol and alcohol-related products and the extra revenue collected ring fenced for the mental health services.

When A Vision for Change (AVFC) was published in 2006, the report recommended that a minimum of 8.5% of the health budget should be allocated to mental health to implement its recommendations, including a move to a comprehensive 24/7 community based service.

While the funding levels proposed in AVFC fell well below the WHO recommendation, nine years later we are still failing to meet this lower funding threshold. Over the past five years funding on mental health services has fallen from around 7.5% in 2010 to around 6% in 2015, staffing has fallen around 20% over the same period.

Approximately €1.1 billion was collected from taxation on alcohol products in Ireland in 2014, therefore, an additional 5% health levy on alcohol would generate another €55m, which is a modest sum in itself.

Cormac Williams

Psychiatric Nurses’ Association

Kerry