Mr. Padraig Cribben:

Yes. That fell to 10.73 litres in 2013, which is a reduction of just under 26% in the intervening period. However, that probably only tells half of the story. Another thing has happened in the last five or six years. In 2006 and 2007, 60% of all alcohol sold in the country was sold in what is generally termed the on-trade, that is, pubs, restaurants, hotels and so forth, and 40% was sold in the off-trade. Today, those figures are reversed. It is now 60% in the off-trade and 40% in the on-trade. When speaking about the off-trade one must be clear that it is not the independent off-trade but the headline grabbing advertisements we see in the Sunday Independent or the Irish Independent on Thursday and so forth. Excise increases broaden the gap in price between the on-trade and the off-trade. The excise remains the same on both, but the on-trade sells alcohol only, so it does not have other products over which to spread it, whereas the supermarket trade has 4,500 to 6,000 other products on which a cent here and a cent there can recoup what has been lost on the alcohol. Take the example of what happened in the last two years. In the weeks after the budget, the headline advertisements stated "no excise increase here". They absorbed it, mar dhea, but they passed it on through other products.

As to the effects of the excise increases, alcohol consumption has reduced and is now bordering on the European average, but the channel from which the alcohol is bought and consumed has changed considerably.