Michael Harty (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair. I am happy to contribute to this debate on an issue which is pretty close to my heart. The aim of this Bill is to tackle Ireland's ongoing unhealthy relationship with alcohol misuse. It is not just about the consumption of alcohol. I agree with Deputy O'Keeffe that everything should be taken in moderation. In this Bill, we are tackling the misuse of alcohol and seeking to reduce this country's overall level alcohol consumption, which is far too high. The Department of Health has a modest target of reducing alcohol consumption in Ireland from 11 litres to 9 litres per person per year over the coming years.

We are not talking about not drinking - we are talking about controlling the misuse of alcohol. Any measure that helps to reduce alcohol consumption has to be welcomed. This Bill is the first step in that regard. The intention behind the legislation is to ensure that the supply and pricing of alcohol are regulated and controlled. The Bill is designed to delay the initiation of the use of alcohol in our younger population. This is critically important because young people are starting to drink at a much younger age. Those who drink before the end of their teenage years are much more susceptible to the effects of alcohol.

The power of the alcohol industry has been evident throughout this legislative process. It took two years for this Bill to pass through the Seanad. The power of the alcohol industry and related industries is quite awesome. The alcohol industry is fighting with the health sector on this issue. It is important for us to highlight the health issues in relation to the misuse of alcohol. Strong and subtle lobbying has challenged the medical evidence of the harm that alcohol causes. It has also challenged the evidence of the effects on alcohol consumption of advertising, of the public display and availability of alcohol in small and large supermarkets and shops, and of alcohol being closely aligned with food. The industry has also challenged the placement of the warnings that need to be placed on alcohol products. It is very important that people know what they are consuming, what the safe levels of consumption are and what harm can arise if those limits are exceeded.

We need to embrace the opportunity that this House has been given to agree legislation that can save lives, just as the legislation that introduced the smoking ban over a decade ago saved a number of lives. This Bill is the first step in reducing alcohol consumption. It will move us away from the existing system of self-regulation. The problem with the consumption of alcohol is that it involves self-regulation in areas like marketing and pricing. We need to introduce legislation that will control those two areas.

We need to consider alcohol as a drug rather than a commodity. Unfortunately, the way alcohol is sold and displayed in shops and supermarkets makes it seem just like any other food or drink product. Alcohol is a drug and we have to see it as such, not just as a food commodity.

The safe limits of alcohol consumption are 17 units for males and 11 units for females per week. A standard glass of wine is one unit and a standard pint is two units. If a female drinks six pints every week, she will exceed the limit and if a male drinks nine pints, he will exceed it. Everything in moderation - we are not trying to stop people drinking but we are trying to bring to people the safe amounts that they can consume.

Three people die every day and 1,000 people die every year of alcohol-related illnesses. We now have a phenomenon whereby people are going into liver failure in their third and fourth decades of life. Liver failure was something that happened to people in their 60s and 70s but now it is happening at a much younger age. The incidence of head and neck cancer, breast cancer, bowel cancer, heart disease and stroke increases as people exceed the safe limits relating to alcohol. This tends to hide the psychological and social destruction that alcohol can bring about in our society. Depression and suicide are increasing and one in ten psychiatric admissions is related to excessive alcohol use. There is social, physical and psychological destruction of our society because of the adverse effects of alcohol.

Some 1,500 beds are occupied in our hospitals every day by people who have alcohol-related diseases. This equates to three large regional hospitals. If we could build three large regional hospitals, we would solve many of the problems in our health service yet here we have 1,500 beds occupied by alcohol-related illness.

There is a problem with crime. Others have spoken about the destruction that alcohol causes at weekends and the problems that spill over into our casualty and emergency departments. Anybody who has visited or worked in a casualty department will say that alcohol is a huge problem at weekends and not necessarily just then.

The Bill can achieve a great deal. It will not achieve it overnight but over the years it will certainly provide a huge health dividend to our society. The difficulty can be encapsulated by the fact that it is as easy to buy a bottle of alcohol as it is to buy a bottle of milk. That must change. We have to change our attitudes towards alcohol; it is not a food. This can be done through a number of means which are referred to in the Bill. Minimum unit pricing, the visibility and advertising of alcohol and the labelling of alcohol to include health information. Minimum unit pricing is core to the Bill. The aim behind it is to tackle the cheap availability of alcohol. There is well-established international evidence that consumption decreases as price increases. This can be achieved by raising taxes, as we do every year, by means of increasing the excise duty on alcohol. That in itself is not effective because we have to introduce minimum unit pricing. Putting a tax on the alcohol can be negated by below-cost selling. That is what supermarkets do. If there is a minimum unit price, they cannot do that. The Bill proposes that there would be a 10 cent per gram of alcohol minimum unit price, which would be enforced and highly regulated. This will have the effect of reducing the amount of alcohol consumed and consequently the health issues in respect of our association with alcohol in this country.

A female can exceed her safe limits by spending just €7 a week and a male can exceed his by spending just €10 a week, which is within the reach of every member of this society. We have to increase the price to reduce our alcohol consumption. That would translate into a bottle of wine costing €9. Some Deputies referred to buying bottles of wine for €30. They would be able to buy three bottles of wine if that was to be the case. Certainly, a bottle of wine costing €9 is not outlandish. A pint of beer or cider would be a minimum of €2.50 and a bottle of spirits €28.

We also have to address the issue of advertising, particularly as advertising is addressed towards children. We need to reduce the exposure of children to alcohol through advertising and by seeing it freely available in supermarkets. TV advertising needs to be limited, as does online advertising. The latter can be targeted at younger age groups and children and young adults are spending increasing amounts of time online. Alcohol companies will certainly direct advertising towards them in that regard. We also have to limit the advertising of alcohol at sporting events. We know children who are exposed to alcohol at a very young age are at an increased risk of being damaged later in life.

Finally, I wish to address the structural separation of alcohol in supermarkets. It is extremely important that alcohol is not visible in supermarkets. We talk about the "supermarket burka". This is going to be an imposition on small supermarkets and shops that will have to make changes to how they sell alcohol. However, it is not going to be an insurmountable challenge. It is extremely important that the close association in a supermarket between alcohol and food, milk and all the other commodities is restricted.

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