Sir, – There is a certain irony when Cormac Healy of Drinks Ireland accuses Alcohol Action Ireland of seeking “to conflate” alcohol and non-alcohol products in light of what appears to be clear and deliberate brand sharing (or brand conflation) by alcoholic drinks companies to exploit an obvious loophole in the Public Health Act 2018 (Letters, April 4th).
The claim made in the letter that alcohol and non-alcohol products are “distinct consumer offerings” is not backed up by their apparently similar branding, which at a glance, is often indistinguishable. In relation to the “fresh research”, which related to alcohol sales in a simulated online supermarket in England and Wales, it is not really a surprise that increasing the proportion of non-alcoholic drinks on a computer screen, (including soft drinks with high sugar content), reduces alcohol selection and online purchases.
The link made in the letter between the research’s limited findings and the on-pitch advertising of well-known alcoholic beer brands with 0.0 printed adjacent to them at sports events is tenuous and “seeks to conflate” online supermarket shopping with international sports events. – Yours, etc,
TOM KILBRIDE,
New Irish citizens: ‘I hear the racist and xenophobic slurs on the streets. Everything is blamed on immigrants’
Jack Reynor: ‘We were in two minds between eloping or going the whole hog but we got married in Wicklow with about 220 people’
‘I could have gone to California. At this rate, I probably would have raised about half a billion dollars’
Ballsbridge mews formerly home to Irish musician for €1.95m
Bray,
Co Wicklow.