Sir, – We are being warned once again of the plague of cheap drink in the country – one of the major catastrophes of contemporary Irish society, it seems – though a search for such seductive nectars has proved, in my case anyway, unsuccessful.
I hope the rising tide of neo-prohibitionists will have spotted the EU statistics agency (Eurostat) report on the subject ("Ireland has highest alcohol and tobacco prices in EU, survey finds", June 20th).
The report states that together alcohol and tobacco cost in the Irish Republic 70 per cent more than the EU average.
Only the UK comes near us at 65 per cent above the average. Finland, often cited as one of the most expensive countries in Europe, is a mere 36 per cent above the average.
Cheap drink? Here’s an example. In Portugal I frequently buy a Douro red wine for around €4.40 a bottle. I spotted the same wine in a Dublin supermarket recently for €13.
Some TDs are again falling over each other in a politically correct frenzy in calling for yet another increase in the price of drink.
This, if they succeed, will affect the proverbial little old lady who carefully buys one bottle of wine a week much more than it will trouble the small percentage of problem drinkers. – Yours, etc,
RONAN FARREN,
Killiney, Co Dublin.