Pádraig Rice (Cork South-Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I move: “That the Bill be now read a Second Time.”

I am delighted to bring this Bill to Second Stage. It is pretty straightforward legislation, which would amend the Public Health (Alcohol) Act to ensure that the restrictions on alcohol advertising were fully enforced to the letter and spirit of the law, as intended. Members will remember that, back in 2018, the Oireachtas passed the Public Health (Alcohol) Act. It was landmark legislation that began to change the relationship that we in this State had with alcohol, and started many conversations around how we regulated and interacted with alcohol. A key part of that legislation was a restriction on alcohol advertising. It was fairly straightforward. It placed restrictions on advertising of alcohol near schools, near parks, on public transport, at sports events, on television before 9 p.m. and in supermarkets. These were modest provisions to regulate advertising. Unfortunately, the alcohol industry and the alcohol companies found a loophole in the law, and they are exploiting it. Our Bill closes that loophole. What we are asking for is enforcement of the original 2018 Act as intended, which would put a restriction on alcohol advertising. At its core, this is about protecting children. The areas that were picked were areas where there were children - near schools, on the bus, in public transport, at the cinema or watching television before 9 p.m. The Act was designed to ensure that children are not exposed to alcohol advertising.

It is clear to the dogs in the street that the alcohol industry is exploiting the law and that there is a clear loophole in the law. The industry is using the same branding, design and colours, and it is almost identical to the advertising for full-strength products. Anybody can see that. I would ask anybody looking in to take a look at the Social Democrats’ Instagram. We have put forward a “spot the difference” test so that people can see how identical these ads are. There is no denying what the alcohol industry is doing here. It is circumventing the law.

Deputy Murnane O’Connor, as the responsible Minister of State, needs to take a stand. She needs to stand up to the industry in the interests of public health and, in particular, in the interests of the children of Ireland. I urge her to reflect on the position the Government has put out on this. The right thing to do is to stand up in the interests of public health. That is her job as the Minister of State with responsibility for public health: to defend public health and to ensure that the laws passed by this House are enforced. We cannot allow those with vested interests to trample over the law and exploit loopholes in it.

This is a modest measure that we are putting forward. It is deeply disappointing that we have heard in advance that the Government is going to oppose it. I ask the Minister of State to reflect on that before she makes her opening address.

The evidence is clear. We have seen an increase in youth drinking. The Healthy Ireland study shows a 12% increase in youth drinking since 2018. That should concern the Minister of State, as the person responsible for public health. It should concern the officials in the Department as well. We know that, according to Alcohol Action, 50,000 children take up drinking each year, and this is a known risk factor for alcohol dependency in later life. What we are trying to do here is protect children and adults in later life by ensuring that they are not exposed to a large amount of alcohol advertising.

We have a growing awareness and understanding of the impact that alcohol is having on our society and on people. We know there are 1,000 alcohol-related cancers each year. We know that four people die every day in Ireland from alcohol-related harm. It is costing the health service a huge amount of money; according to the Government's own estimates, it is costing the health service €1.5 billion. We talk here all the time about cost savings, efficiencies and doing things better. We can do that by reducing alcohol-related harm and the cost it is having on our health service, our society and individuals. There is not a family in the country that has not been impacted by alcohol. What we are doing is trying to protect children to ensure there is not a greater impact on them in later life.

It is as clear as day what the alcohol industry is doing. The evidence shows us exactly that. The 0.0% alcohol projects make up 1% of the total alcohol market, yet those in the industry are spending 25% of their outdoor alcohol budget on 0.0% products. Why is that? It is because they know this will sell more of the main alcohol product. They are pumping money into 0.0% alcohol advertising to circumvent the law, get around it and advertise in areas where there are children. They are openly saying this. It is not just me saying it. Heineken has said this. In a submission to win a marketing award, a Heineken marketer said that 0.0% product ads increase sales of the full-strength product. If the Minister of State does not believe me, she should listen to what Heineken is saying. It is telling her that this is what it is doing.

It is indisputable what the industry is at here. What is deeply frustrating is the two-faced nature of those in the alcohol industry on this. They will talk in private about the increase in sales, but in public, they will say it is about moderation. They also talk about this as a tool for growth, not moderation. We need to believe them when they say that. We need to look at the evidence and, for me, the evidence is crystal clear.

One of the key issues that we need to look at is the link between alcohol and sport. It came up during the debates back in 2018. On Second Stage in 2018, the then Minister for Health, now Tánaiste, Deputy Simon Harris, said:

Let us be honest. We all still remember sporting events by dint of the sport itself but we also recall the names of the companies that sponsored these events. Sponsorship has a powerful impact on people. This is all about normalising alcohol and healthy sports people in an arena. That is why the companies involved target sports and the big national sporting occasions we have in this country whereby they make the subtle link between physical prowess and alcohol. It is an approach that has to be challenged and addressed.

The Tánaiste, when he was Minister for Health, said: “It is a nefarious form of advertising that companies would target sporting events primarily for that purpose.” Deputy Simon Harris, in this House in 2018, called it “nefarious” that these companies would do that, yet we still have it. Every time we turn on a match, we have the Heineken Cup or the Guinness Six Nations. All of the big alcohol brands are linking it to sport, and they continue to do it.

The Tánaiste also said that the industry had lobbied and hoped to stall and delay projects. That is what it has done. We have to put a stop to it. In the interests of this institution, of democracy and of the rule of law, we need to enforce the laws that are passed. I have read back through the record and I know what the intention of the law was. The intention was to break that link, but it has not been done. The Department has utterly failed to stand up to vested interests and people who put profit before public health. The Minister of State needs to take a stand within the Department and call that out.

The alcohol industry should not have a seat at the table. The industry has lobbied time and again and has succeeded. We were meant to have health warnings on products by now but that has been delayed until 2028 because of lobbying by vested interests that want to make money. This is having an impact on public health. Yesterday, I was debating this on radio with the president of the Vintners' Federation of Ireland, VFI, and the former president of same association who happens to be a Fine Gael TD, so even within government we have people lobbying on this, people with vested interests who are out to make money. That needs to be called out.

I am deeply disappointed by the statement from the Government on this earlier in the week. Frankly, it is disingenuous and misleading and the officials need to reflect on that. We were told that the Government was going to oppose this legislation because of the definition that was given for low-alcohol products, set at 0.5%, but that is the definition within the Government's own Finance Act 2003. We took that from there. The Government cannot use that as an excuse to defeat our legislation when that is its own definition. If the Government thinks we should go further now and set it at 1.5%, we can amend the legislation on Committee Stage. That is why we have a ten-step legislative process in this House. That is why we have Committee and Report Stages in here and why a Bill can go to the Seanad and be amended. The Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Butler, was here a couple of weeks ago telling us about how she accepted hundreds of amendments to the Mental Health Bill. If that is the case for Government Bills, why not take one or two amendments for an Opposition Bill? Why is there one rule for Government Bills and a different one for Opposition Bills? Why set the bar so high for an Opposition Bill that one cannot even put a jot out of place but when it comes to a Government Bill, we can accept hundreds of amendments? Bills can be amended to be something completely different by the time they get to the end of the process. It is hypocrisy, two-faced and unacceptable. The Government needs to stop doing it and be real with the people and honest about the process. I was on radio yesterday debating this with a backbencher who said that the reason the Government was going to oppose the Bill was because it wanted the level set at 1.2% instead of 0.5%. Honestly, it is laughable.

The other excuse given to us related to research. I agree that the more research we have, the better but we already have a stack of international evidence and I can quote some of it, if it is helpful. In 2026, a research paper was published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, entitled: "'I just saw the alcohol brand, I never really thought of the zeros': young people's views of NoLo and alibi alcohol sponsorship". Children as young as 14 were able to identify Guinness as the sponsor of the Six Nations rugby tournament, noting that Guinness was highly visible during matches and that they had seen advertising around the stadium and at matches. One child simply said, "I just saw the alcohol brand, I never really thought of the zeros". This is evidence was published in the International Journal of Drug Policybut the Government thinks we need more. In 2025, an Australian study on alcohol advertising in disguise showed that the exposure of teenagers to zero-alcohol products had a similar effect as exposure to alcohol products. That study concluded that regulatory approaches that sought to limit adolescents' exposure to alcohol should also extend to zero-alcohol products. This is the international evidence that the Government is looking for. It is published in study after study. A 2019 study from Asia on brand advertising and brand sharing of alcoholic and non-alcoholic products found that brand sharing increased brand familiarity and affected brand recognition and awareness. This research also revealed that young people who saw the logo of companies that sold both alcoholic and zero-alcoholic beverages were found to associate the logo primarily with the alcoholic version of the product, indicating that zero-alcohol beverages are working as advertising vehicles for the parent companies. This research concluded that early exposure to alcohol brands increased brand familiarity, which is one of the factors that affects drinking attitudes and purchasing intentions of young people. Another study from Stanford on zero-alcohol products and the guise of responsibility revealed a stark divergence between how zero-alcohol products were described publicly and privately by the industry. In public, the industry talks about it as a tool of moderation but in private it talks about it as a tool to drive market growth and increase main sales. There is a stack of international evidence.

We know what other countries are doing in this area, including Norway and France. Norway has banned brand sharing. Advertising that associates zero-alcohol products with their full-strength brands have been banned, which is similar to what we are looking for here. Non-alcoholic beverages must use completely distinctive branding to avoid any association with the parent alcoholic brand. Why can we not do what they have done in Norway? It is a simple solution. Zero-alcohol products use different branding so that there is not that association. It is very straightforward. We could pass our Bill and the companies could rebrand their products and not have that direct link between the two.

In 1991, France became one of the first countries to tackle alcohol advertising. The French public health code defines alcohol-free beverages as those that contain no more than 1.2% alcohol, technically allowing advertising of alcohol-free alternatives. In 2020, however, a court in France found that advertising zero-alcohol products with the same branding as the full-strength product was illegal because it constituted indirect advertising of the full-strength alcoholic version, which was prohibited in law. That is why when one watches the games in France, they are called the H Cup but in Ireland they are called the Heineken Cup. They have tackled this issue in other countries but the Government here has its head in the sand and will not even enforce its own law that it passed in 2018.

We would not give children a zero-alcohol beer, so why would we allow it to be advertised to them? It is as simple as that. If we can collectively say we are not giving zero-alcohol beers to children, then we should also collectively agree that they should not be seeing ad after ad for them. Any child who goes to the Aviva stadium with a parent at the weekend will be bombarded with advertisements for alcohol. They will see it on the centre pitch and on the sidelines. They will face ad after ad. When they go to the supermarket, where alcohol is meant to be separated, they will see the zero-alcohol ads outside the separation point, next to the meat counter aisle. They will be bombarded with ads. As I was walking around today, I was counting the ads. I saw alcohol ad after alcohol ad. This morning on my way into the Oireachtas, I saw a 0.0 ad for Heineken at a bus stop in Harold's Cross right beside a school. Is that acceptable? Will the Minister of State allow it or will she stand up to the industry like we on this side of the House would? These are vested interests and they are trampling all over public health measures in the pursuit of profit. Is it too much to ask of the alcohol industry to abide by the law?

Finally, I want to thank the members of Alcohol Action who have joined us today and who have been working extensively on this issue and have worked with me on this legislation. I also want to say a big thanks to Jake Ryan in my office for his work on this. I really hope the Government will change its approach from the one expressed earlier in the week.

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