Sir, – Michael McDowell raises some interesting points in his piece “We fret about bilingual labels on beer cans, yet ignore gambling” (Opinion & Analysis, May 17th).
For clarity, Ireland’s alcohol health information labelling regulations do not require bilingual labels on a product.
In bars and restaurants, though, there will be a requirement for a bilingual notice – points which were debated extensively in the Oireachtas. And of course, such labels will be required on each individual product. After all most purchases are of individual bottles and cans rather than cases of products.
The piece questions the efficacy of the modest measures in the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018 which seek to reduce Ireland’s very high levels of alcohol harm, but there is no mention of the massive, orchestrated lobbying by global vested interests which aimed, and succeeded, in diluting many of these controls. As an Irish Times editorial commented at the time, “the tenacity of the drinks industry in protecting its profits at the expense of public health has been single-minded” (“The Irish Times view on the alcohol Bill: drinks lobby pulls out all the stops”, September 27th, 2018).
Matt Williams: Take a deep breath and see how Sam Prendergast copes with big Fiji test
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’
However, Senator McDowell is correct to point out the incoherence in Government policy that has the stated goal of reducing Ireland’s alcohol use to the OECD average by 2020 (a target missed) while also increasing alcohol availability and therefore usage by measures proposed in the Sale of Alcohol Bill.
What is lacking in Government is in-depth policy development and analysis around alcohol. Our limited public health legislation in this regard dates back to a report published in 2012 by a specially convened steering group. Meantime, significant changes in this area have taken place with online marketing, just one area which is not covered and, as indicated, contradictory policies arising across multiple government departments.
Is it zealotry or common sense to point out that there are 1,500 beds in daily use from alcohol related illness, 200,000 children living with the trauma of alcohol harm in the home, at least €3.7 billion in annual costs to the State and the incalculable loss of four people dying every single day?
The piece rightly draws attention to another harmful industry – gambling. The soon to be established Gambling Regulatory Authority will focus on public safety and wellbeing with powers to regulate advertising, gambling, websites and apps.
Senator McDowell is a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, which recently made a recommendation in its pre-legislative scrutiny of the Sale of Alcohol Bill for the establishment of a statutory authority within Government with specific responsibility for reducing alcohol-related harms.
Surely it is more than time to take such an approach to tackle comprehensively the staggering damage to Ireland from alcohol. – Yours, etc,
Dr SHEILA GILHEANY,
CEO,
Alcohol Action Ireland,
Dublin 7.