John Crown (Independent)

An interesting exercise occurred last week. We were in a session of the Joint Committee on Health and Children with representatives of the alcohol industry and also representatives of Alcohol Action Ireland who were concerned about the toll alcohol takes of our society. An illustrative point was to ask what would their attitude be to the notion that Ireland would be a better country if everybody stopped drinking completely tomorrow and gave up alcohol entirely. I am quite certain that if alcohol were discovered for the first time tomorrow, it would not be allowed and would be banned, purely on grounds of carcinogenicity.

Another fact we must bear in mind is where we are in terms of alcohol consumption in Ireland by international standards. The situation is quite extraordinary. As someone who worked in the health services of other countries outside Ireland for many years and took a good deal of good-natured ribbing about the Irish reputation for alcoholic excess, I used to be always able to defend us by saying "But you do know that here in the United Kingdom you have more alcoholic liver disease than we have" and "Here in the US you have a greater consumption of alcohol than we have. We are not actually that bad". That is the way it was, as we were fairly low down the league tables for alcohol consumption by international standards.

The strange and rather sad point is that as soon as we got a few bob during the years of our economic advance, it appears we spent quite a bit of it on alcohol, because we suddenly rocketed towards the top of charts on which we used to occupy mid-table positions. For example, France would have had approximately 20 litres of alcohol consumption per head of population some 30 years, which has since reduced to approximately 14 litres. Over roughly the same period, our consumption has between doubled and tripled, so that we are roughly neck and neck with France and, depending on some statistics, we may be ahead of it. It is clear there is, in absolute terms, a dramatic change in alcohol consumption in this country. Much of what we have regarded as being the health consequences of alcohol excess we have not yet seen because it will take quite a few years for them to reach fruition, based on the newer consumption figures which occurred during the 1990s.

Hypothetically, what would happen if everybody in Ireland decided collectively to take the pledge tomorrow - if we all gave up alcohol in its entirety? The first thing that would happen is that we would have fewer road traffic accidents, fewer injuries and fewer deaths - I do not think anybody would dispute that. We would have fewer assaults, less domestic violence and fewer rapes. The murder rate would go down. There would be a dramatic decrease in the demand for accident and emergency services, with the spin-off benefit of a dramatic decrease in waiting list times for other elective aspects of our health system, which are currently bunged up by people coming in with alcohol-related emergencies. I can speak with authority when I say there would be a decrease in the incidence of cancers of the head and neck, of the oesophagus and of the pancreas. We have recently discovered there is a link between alcohol and breast cancer, so if everybody stopped drinking, the level of breast cancer would reduce, perhaps by as much as one third.

We must also factor in the opportunity costs, in that all the money we spend on alcohol at a time when we do not have much money could be spent on other things. This affects every family that is spending money on alcohol when there are recessionary pressures. While I believe most families are extremely responsible to the pin of their collars in using their money as responsibly as they can for the benefit of their children, the reality is there would be more money available for family finance, food, clothing and education. There is a substantial opportunity time cost of alcohol consumption. Parents would have more time for good parenting and likely would do it better. There are substantial economic arguments, some of which we have heard in terms of the implications for employment.

There really is not any good argument for us to continue drinking, but we will do it, because it is deeply ingrained in our culture and our own personal psychology, so, I guess, we must all define the parameters of our own relationship with alcohol, if we consume it. However, we can as a society do our level best to ameliorate its worst effects and to discourage and disincentivise alcohol consumption among younger people.

A similar point arose many years ago with regard to tobacco. All of the arguments which are advanced in favour of alcohol are spurious, except for the argument that we do it because it is fun and gives us pleasure - that is the only one that is valid, which people must honestly admit. All of the arguments that it facilitates socialisation or that the mild relaxation effects might help to disinhibit people who might otherwise not have the opportunity to engage others in conversation are all spurious arguments. It is addiction thinking, which is very reminiscent of the same arguments that were advanced in favour of tobacco, such as "Sure, won't the few cigarettes relax me" and "I would get a heart attack if I did not have them". We now know that is total nonsense. All of the social benefits which occur with alcohol would be available in different social fora without alcohol.

What we should be aiming for as a society is less alcohol consumption. Clearly, we need to do a whole array of things which will decrease the amount of alcohol we collectively drink. At the committee last week we interacted with members of two representative organisations, the Vintners Federation of Ireland and the Alcoholic Beverage Federation of Ireland. There have been few occasions in my life when in the course of a one or two hour meeting, my attitudes hardened more. I went in thinking I was in favour of a gentle ban on broadcast advertisements for alcohol and nothing else but I came out thinking these people were the enemy. We have to tackle them and we have to refute all the arguments they advance. Collectively, it is our responsibility as representatives of our society to do all we can to ensure people drink less and drink responsibly. The arguments they advanced were that we can drink just as much as we do, if not more, and as long as we do so responsibly, we can ameliorate the social effects. That is not true. We need to drink less and to set ourselves against the wind with an ambitious agenda to ban all alcohol advertising. We cannot allow companies to profit from encouraging people to do something that is bad for them.

The pricing issues, correctly raised in our amendment by the Senator van Turnhout, must be addressed. I am delighted we have had a high measure of co-operation with the amendment. We also need, as many colleagues have pointed out, to look into our own souls, examine our own attitudes to this drug and try to do what we can to set a major decline in alcohol consumption over the next five to ten years as an ambitious national goal. I thank everyone for the cross-party support for the motion. This is a critically important health issue we all need to deal with.