Sir, – Arguably the most important aspect of the publication of the Public Health (Alcohol) Bill is that there is no prospect that the legislation will be enacted during the lifetime of this Government. It seems important to make the point that this disappointment for advocates of the public health approach to alcohol issues cannot be explained in terms of unanticipated complexities that delayed the legislative process. The key issues that arise in this complex policy area have been identified and discussed, more or less ad nauseam, in policy documents that stretch back now over decades – and most recently in the steering group report on a national substance misuse strategy which was published in February 2012. The present Government had four years to legislate on the basis of these recommendations from 2012; that it failed to do so may be explained primarily in terms of the lobbying power of the drinks industry. – Yours, etc,
SHANE BUTLER, PhD
School of Social Work
and Social Policy,
Trinity College Dublin.