Richard Dunne, president of the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI), rejects criticism of the industry made by Dr Joe Barry. Mr Dunne believes that "the market for alcohol in Ireland will be healthier and more successful if we can tackle the type of abuse that seems to have become more prevalent in recent times". He said as much in a letter published in this newspaper two days ago.
It's understandable that Dunne should want a healthier and more successful "market" for the industry he represents. All industries wish the same for their products. But flogging alcohol - much more than say, furniture, computers or shoes - involves (or ought to involve) responsibilities that transcend the mere market. Among these is a basic sensitivity to human language.
It's not simply a market segment of the drinks industry that is killing, dying, maiming, suffering and causing grief because of drinking too much alcohol. It's real people who are killing, injuring and generally making themselves and others miserable. Cloaking flesh and blood in the numbing language of the balance sheet diminishes a gory and extremely painful truth.
Using bland business-ese to describe real people is not as offensive as calling casualties "collateral damage" but it too betrays a dehumanising perspective that, albeit less grossly, objectifies people.
Back in May 2002, the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Micheál Martin, said the then incoming government would have to take on market forces to sort out Ireland's problems with alcohol. "We have to wake up to this issue. Market forces versus public health issues have to be confronted once and for all," he said. The Minister was reacting to a task force report on alcohol which showed that during the 1990s, Irish consumption of booze had increased by 41 per cent. The study also found that drink was involved in a quarter of visits to hospital A&E departments.
Two years ago, the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland contested the task force report on alcohol. The report, DIGI claimed then, did "not significantly recognise, for example, that the abuse of alcohol rather than its use is the key issue". The (il)logic of this dissembling is that drinkers are solely to be blamed, suppliers take no responsibility and intense marketing is exonerated.
Certainly, there's a powerful element of self-responsibility involved in drinking. But it's disingenuous to suggest that while millions of euro are spent on promoting booze - frequently emphasising the sex-appeal it allegedly bestows - such marketing can be blame-free. It can't. While advertising doesn't explicitly promote abuse, it's abusive to deny a link between abuse and promotion.
The same arguments are made by salacious journalism: "We're only giving people what they want." Drug-dealers, brothel-keepers and porn-merchants could claim likewise. But the creation of a cultural climate in which salacious journalism or the abuse of drink can thrive is an inevitable by-product of the millions spent on promotions. Excess is normalised to maximise profits.
"We aren't the first industry in the world to say that we would prefer our product to be enjoyed responsibly by a wide number of people rather than irresponsibly by a small number," continued Mr Dunne's letter. Ideally, then, the drinks industry would like as many people as possible drinking sensibly but not to excess. Why then does it aim so much advertising at young people?
A recent radio ad badgered listeners to spend the weekend in their favourite pub. Cast as a warm and welcoming home from home, it attempted not only to normalise but to venerate a weekend spent in a pub. No mention was made of the expense or the possible damage to physical and psychic health the pub weekend might exact. Just go there and enter a haven of bliss.
Years ago, cigarette advertising was equally disingenuous. Smoking would make you sophisticated, cool and sexy. You could relax with a cigarette. Whenever such old ads are periodically shown on television documentaries, people laugh at the nonsense. The drinks industry, however, is getting away with even greater nonsense and few are laughing.
At least on packets of cigarettes, there are health warnings. Should not bottles of alcohol contain similar warnings? 'If you drink too much of this you could face cirrhosis, gastritis, ulcers. It might also make you aggressive, depressed, suicidal. How might DIGI react to such warnings if they were made compulsory? They won't be, of course, for there's no political will to do so.
Speaking in the Senate in March, 2001, Dr Mary Henry said that Prof Anthony Clare (former medical director of St Patrick's Hospital, a psychiatric institution) had frequently told her he believed underage drinking in Ireland was a more serious problem than the use of illegal drugs. Given the sheer scale of the devastation caused by booze, it clearly is.
Yet it continues at an alarming rate and the drinks industry refuses to acknowledge the extent of its role in the misery. Abuse "seems to have become more prevalent in recent times", wrote Mr Dunne.
There's no seeming about it. Abuse has become more prevalent and while the industry is not solely to blame, it cannot shirk the fact that its profiteering is a major part of the problem.