A €1.75 million campaign to encourage responsible drinking will be launched today by Meas, the association set up by the drinks industry to promote moderate alcohol consumption.
The first phase of the campaign involves a multimedia advertising campaign and a new website, www.drinkaware.ie, that assesses alcohol consumption levels to determine if they are moderate or hazardous. It uses Department of Health and World Health Organisation guidelines to measure safe drinking levels. The campaign will carry the slogan "Know the one that's one too many".
Meas has come in for strong criticism from people campaigning against over-consumption of alcohol because it is funded by the drinks industry. Its chief executive, Fionnuala Sheehan, said she was confident the new website would be seen "by every fair-minded person as a valuable resource". She hoped it would become "an authoritative reference point on responsible drinking for all interested parties in the country".
The website explains what a "standard drink" is - approximately a glass of beer, or a glass of wine, or a measure of spirits - and it provides a calculator that allows people to measure how many standard drinks they consume each week. A 750ml bottle of wine with an alcohol by volume (ABV) content of 12 per cent contains seven standard drinks, while the same size bottle with an ABV of 13.5 per cent contains eight standard drinks.
It also carries an interactive diary to allow people to maintain their own drinks diary on the website. The website advises women who are pregnant, or trying to get pregnant, to avoid drinking, and it advises parents on how to recognise if children are secretly drinking, and how to manage alcohol in the home.
The website will be promoted by an extensive radio, television and outdoor advertising campaign. Eventually, all major Irish drinks manufacturers will include a reference to the website on their advertising.
"The key focus of the initiative is to promote responsible use of alcohol while, at the same time, challenging anti-social drinking behaviours," Ms Sheehan said.
"We also want to encourage people to think in terms of standard drinks consumption, and to measure their own drinking accordingly to see if the amount they are drinking is moderate or excessive."
