Alcohol Bill should prioritise citizens’ health over drinks industry’s profits

Our creaking health system is overwhelmed by our unhealthy relationship with alcohol, writes Alison O’Connor.

IT hasn’t quite reached the hyperbolic heights of the hysterical debate that surrounded the smoking ban more than a decade ago, but quite a frenzy has built up around the Public Health Alcohol bill.

One Leinster House source long familiar with such things described the lobbying that’s going on as one of the most intense they had ever experienced: “It’s a very, very dirty campaign.”