Dr. Sheila Gilheany:

I understand when people say that they have been to other parts of Europe and the people there have a particular lifestyle. However, when we make comparisons, we have to remember that Europe as a region has the highest alcohol consumption in the world. We are looking at societies that have big problems themselves. To give an example, people often talk about Berlin nightclubs but Germany has costs from alcohol in the order of €40 billion per year. With France we often talk about quaffing nice French wine but 30% of the population have a problem with alcohol. We need to step back and consider where we could look that has a better way of dealing with alcohol.

I am all in favour of harm reduction teams but that is addressing and trying to ameliorate a problem that is already there. Let us take a step back and go upstream from that and ask what is actually causing the harm. In this case, the harm is being caused by high levels of alcohol use. Treating somebody for their high levels of alcohol use is very important but to address the issue we need to turn off the tap at an earlier stage, or at least reduce the pressure within the system.