The extent to which alcohol is a factor in deaths on the roads, in house fires and in suicides is revealed in a new Irish study to be published shortly.
The study looked at the concentration of alcohol in the blood of people who died in accidents or by suicide in Cavan, Monaghan and Louth over a two-year period and it found that 40 per cent of those who died in road crashes and 55.5 per cent of those who died by suicide had alcohol in their bloodstream.
In addition, 100 per cent of adults killed in house fires (11 people died in house fires over the period) who had blood samples taken at postmortem examination were found to have had concentrations of alcohol in their blood which would have put them above the legal limit to drive.
No alcohol was found in the blood of the seven people who died in industrial or farm accidents during the period under review.
A total of 129 deaths in 2001 and 2002 were examined and blood samples taken during postmortems were available for 105 of these, from which the study's results come.
The study coincides with a claim by a leading public health specialist, Dr Joe Barry of TCD, that the cost of alcohol-related problems, including healthcare, accidents, crime, absenteeism and lost taxes, is now likely to be €3 billion a year.
One of the authors of the study, Dr Declan Bedford, a public health doctor with the Health Service Executive in the north-east, said the research showed that alcohol was a big factor in all deaths, even house fires. "It highlights the huge contribution alcohol is making to accidental deaths and suicides . . . it is vital that the level of consumption in Ireland is reduced."
Some 55 of the deaths examined were of people killed on the roads and they included 25 drivers, 20 passengers and 10 pedestrians.
The study, to be published in the next issue of the Irish Medical Journal, established that 33 per cent of the drivers killed had consumed alcohol, and five of them were over the legal limit. The majority of the drivers were men in their 20s. Of the adult passengers killed, 76 per cent had alcohol in their blood, and among adult pedestrians killed, 66 per cent had alcohol in their blood.
Blood-alcohol levels were recorded for 29 of the 31 people, mostly men, who died by suicide. Of these, 55.5 per cent had alcohol in their blood. Those under the age of 30 were significantly more likely to have alcohol in their blood and to have a concentration above the legal limit.
Dr Bedford said this data suggested that alcohol plays a "far bigger role" in suicide among young people in Ireland than previously thought.