Dr. Sheila Gilheany:

No. Can we just nail this on the head? The World Health Organization says that education is not the answer. The reason it is not the answer is because the primary educator on this subject is the marketing we are exposed to. In Ireland, we see something like €115 million worth of alcohol advertising every year. That includes only actual advertising and not all of the sponsorship deals for rugby and so on. There is no way that an education budget will ever be remotely capable of countering that. To reiterate Professor Murray's points, I will also say that, when talking about trying to change the landscape, we have to go back to earlier legislation and the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018, which included some modest restrictions on alcohol advertising including, for example, the broadcast watershed for alcohol advertising. We should not see advertisements for alcohol on television before 9 p.m. but that has never been implemented. On the one hand, there is the legislation that sought to introduce some restrictions but which has not been implemented and this current legislation, which was ostensibly about the streamlining of regulation but into which was slipped an extension of hours not just for nightclubs, but for ordinary pubs and restaurants. There is an utter mismatch and complete imbalance in the legislation that is play with regard to alcohol.