Dr. Sheila Gilheany:

I have to come back to alcohol because more has to be done. In 2021 the industry spent €150 million on alcohol advertisement. The HSE alcohol programme spent about €65,000 so we can see the massive difference there. I am not asking that the alcohol programme would spend €150 million, it would make more sense to reduce the amount of alcohol advertising we can see. There needs to be coherence in this. Reference was made earlier to Coimisiún na Meán and the online codes. There was discussion about the Department of Health engaging with the commission around inputting into those codes. That is very valuable but they are not inputting about alcohol and the online targeting of children and young people, and indeed vulnerable people, in many ways with online marketing. There is a need for policy coherence. I would advocate for an office for alcohol harm reduction within the Department of Health that would take a view right across all Departments and provide advice on what needs to be done across these different Departments. That is one thing. A second thing that is needed is proper collation of the evidence around us.

There was a question earlier about minimum unit pricing and how effective it is or otherwise. We are not looking properly or gathering the data on this. The previous Minister for Health had set up the public health alcohol research group, which reported to him and provided advice on what needed to be done. There has been no response yet on what is going to happen in this regard. Other countries publish indicators every year on how many people die as a result of alcohol. We have not had an update on the number of such deaths since 2017, which was the last time the number of deaths was measured and published. That is just one example. We know that approximately 1,500 beds are used every night in the context of alcohol illness but we do not have a measurement, on a flashboard or some such device, indicating we changed our policy and are now seeing such a trend. We do not have such mechanisms. They need to be put in place. The structural changes needed will help politicians drive the change that is needed. Instead of these, we have an industry with a massive amount of contact with the politicians and policymakers who effectively write the policies put into place. Somehow it is all seen as a partnership and regarded as great. It is not; it is very damaging to health.