A LACK of political will to tackle our “explosive binge drinking culture” was perpetuating a culture where “enormous damage” was being done to family life, with young children being the ones at greatest risk of harm, the authors of a new study on the impact of alcohol on Irish society have said.
Dr Ann Hope and Dr Deirdre Mongan of the Health Research Board (HRB) said it was “particularly worrying” that almost one-fifth of all alcohol-related offences committed between 2003 and 2007 were by minors under the age of 18.
They called for a minimum floor-price per unit of alcohol sold in shops, stronger enforcement of laws prohibiting the sale of alcohol to anyone who is drunk and a “proper national alcohol policy”,
Dr Hope said parents should not be drunk in front of their children and, referring to the belief it was wise to allow adolescents a glass of wine with a meal, said it was wrong for parents to allow children consume any alcohol.
“Alcohol is a drug. There is absolutely no evidence that allowing a young person alcohol will encourage them to consume it with moderation.”
She was speaking at the publication yesterday of Social Consequences of Harmful Use of Alcohol in Ireland. The study looks at alcohol and crime as well as at alcohol and social harm.
Crime data was derived from Garda Pulse records.
“Between 2003 and 2007 the number of alcohol-related offences increased by 30 per cent from 50,948 to 66,406,” they found. The typical offender was men aged under 24. The 18-24 age groups was responsible for two-fifths of such offences.
“Those under 18 accounted for 17 per cent of offenders and the total number of offences among minors increased from 6,531 in 2003 to 10,037 in 2007.”
The number of drink-driving offences increased by 74 per cent between 2003 and 2007 from 11,421 to 19,864. The highest proportion of offences were committed by 18-24-year-olds.
Data on the social consequences of drinking was gleaned from surveys carried out between 2002 and 2006.
One in five people (21 per cent) experienced some kind of harm due to their own drinking in the previous 12 months. “Harm” was identified as getting into a fight or argument, harm to friendships, to home or to work or study.
Men (28 per cent) were twice as likely as women (13 per cent) to report having experienced social harm. Harm to home life was more common among those aged 35 and over.
Over one in four people (28 per cent) reported experiencing social harm – such as family problems, assault, financial worries, being a passenger with a drunk driver – as a result of someone else’s drinking.
While men and women experienced similar levels of social harm caused by someone else’s drinking, more women (17 per cent) reported family problems than men (12 per cent).
“We know anecdotally a lot of harm is experienced in families as a result of alcohol,” said Dr Hope. “It is young children I would be most worried about.” It was impossible to know the full extent of what they were witnessing and experiencing behind closed doors.
Parents were their first role-models, she said, adding there was good evidence that alcohol consumed by young people could do “permanent damage to the learning and memory sections of their brains”.
