A Government-appointed taskforce will this week recommend restrictions be placed on "any further increase" in the number of outlets across the State selling alcohol. Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent, reports.
The recommendation in the report from the Strategic Taskforce on Alcohol could, if implemented, mean new filling stations, supermarkets and corner shops would be unable to stock any kind of alcohol.
The report, which also recommends increasing taxes on alcohol products, will be presented to the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, at Government Buildings on Wednesday.
The Irish Times has learned that it contains nine sets of recommendations aimed at curbing worrying levels of alcohol consumption, including binge drinking, in the Republic.
These centre on putting in place measures to reduce availability of alcohol, increasing awareness among employers about the hazards of alcohol in the workplace, the need for health warnings to be placed on the labels of all alcohol products and the need for pregnant women to be aware of the dangers of drinking.
The report also contains a raft of recommendations aimed at protecting children from exposure to alcohol.
It says children should be protected from advertising promotions much more rigorously than they have been and that those aged under 18 should not be allowed to work in bars unless they are part of a family which owns and runs a licensed premises.
This is the second report from the taskforce, which is chaired by the Department of Health's chief medical officer, Dr Jim Kiely, and which was set up in 2002.
Its interim report in May 2002 noted a "dramatic" increase in alcohol consumption in Ireland between 1989 and 1999 when it increased by 41 per cent at a time when consumption decreased in 10 other EU member-states.
It said this increase in consumption was directly linked to a continuum of problems, ranging from accidents and unprotected sex to chronic illness.
These problems, it stressed, affected people right across the community. For example, alcohol was a factor, it said, in one in four visits to accident and emergency departments in hospitals, and public order offences increased by 97 per cent between 1996 and 2000, the vast majority of these being alcohol-related.
It made a series of recommendations, some of which have been reiterated in the taskforce's latest report.These included increasing taxes on alcohol products, introducing random breath testing and reducing the amount of alcohol permissible when driving.
It also called for enforcement of the law which makes it an offence for publicans to serve those already intoxicated, for happy hours to be banned and for measures to reduce the exposure of children to alcohol advertising.
Earlier this year a report from the joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children also made a series of recommendations aimed at curbing excessive drinking among young people. It recommended a ban on alcohol advertising within three years, a ban on drinks company sponsorship for all sporting events involving people under 25 years of age, a doubling in duty and taxes on alcopops, price controls on soft drinks sold in public houses, and the introduction of a bar-code system for identifying where specific alcohol products are bought in order to guard against under-age drinking.
The Department of Health has indicated that its proposals for legislation to limit young people's exposure to alcohol advertising are at an advanced stage but that an outright ban is not planned.