An alcohol strategy implementation team must be established with the adequate resources to "face down the alcohol industry", a coalition of doctors, politicians, youth workers and suicidologists has said.
The coalition, Action on Alcohol, said, six months after the publication of the Strategic Task Force on Alcohol's second report, not one recommendation had been acted on.
The task force's report, published in December, said almost €6 billion was spent by Irish people on alcohol every year. It said personal expenditure on drink had almost doubled, from €3.3 billion in 1995 to nearly €6 billion in 2002, and that binge drinking, defined as having six or more standard drinks on a single occasion, had become the norm among Irish men.
Out of every 100 drinking occasions among men, 58 ended up in binge drinking while, among women, every 30 drinking occasions ended up in binge drinking. Among its proposals are that a structure to implement its recommendations be established at local and national level, that random breath-testing be introduced all year round, and that taxes be increased on alcohol to reduce demand.
Joe Barry, a senior lecturer in public health medicine at Trinity College, who sat on the task force, said yesterday the balance of power had swung "completely in favour of the producers".
"What we are looking for is that the Government take this issue much more seriously. Asking the industry to behave responsibly is like asking foxes not to kill chickens - they cannot do it. We want the Taoiseach to show some leadership. We want the Government to implement its own strategy."
Declan Bedford, of the Royal College of Physicians, said alcohol caused more deaths than obesity and that of people under 30 who died of suicide, 90 per cent had had alcohol in their bloodstreams at the time of death. "Research last year in the northeast of the country found 40 per cent of those who died in road traffic accidents had alcohol in their bloodstreams."
Conor Egleston, an accident and emergency consultant from Drogheda, said up to 25 per cent of admissions to A&E were alcohol-related.
He referred to one man who had the record number of attendances at his A&E last year: "Sam", he said, had 141 admissions last year, every one of them alcohol-related.
"I have seen him with seizures, prolonged seizures, delirium tremens, numerous fractures and he is constantly dislocating his shoulders through falls. "Every A&E department in the country has their Sams."
Mary Cunningham, director of the National Youth Council said the adults of Ireland should "hang our heads in shame" at the levels of alcohol abuse by young people.
She said it was "heartbreaking and shameful" that none of the recommendations of the task force report had been implemented.
