Ireland: Minimum Alcohol Pricing Goes Ahead

Despite a similar law being stuck in the courts in Scotland, despite the Scottish plans getting complaints from 12 other European countries, despite the simple fact that it has been proven time and time again that the more you restrict the availability of alcohol, the more people end up drinking and more to the point binge drink. The Irish government has done what it always does. They have stuck their heads in the sand after picking a hair brained idea from the UK that is already on shaky ground and are about to sign it in to law. When will this madness end?

The idea behind minimum pricing isn't too bad. Supposedly it's to stop supermarkets from selling alcohol below cost which in turn attracts customers who will do a full shop while they are there and make the supermarket loads of money. Here's the thing, we already had a ban on below cost selling. It was called the groceries order. All they had to do was bring it back, even if it was only on certain products like alcohol.

I'm on the fence about it though. On the one hand, it seems it should only target the cheap cans of lager that go for about €1 (sometimes less) in supermarkets. This means that the beer will no longer be cheap and those consumers might decide to try a more expensive beer from an independent Irish microbrewery instead? Not likely but it's a possibility. On the other hand, it's just one more ridiculous thing the government has done to drive up the cost of alcohol because of apparent harm and by apparent, we are talking about a small minority of Irish people who have an alcohol problem, not the majority of responsible adults who don't abuse alcohol, treat it with respect and drink in moderation.

Already, Ireland has one of the highest rates of alcohol related tax in the world. Here's the thing, the further north you go, the higher the alcohol tax seems to be and the higher the rate of binge drinking. Let's take Sweden for example. They probably have the highest alcohol tax in the world. The cost of alcohol is ridiculous. Do the people of Sweden stop drinking or even reduce their consumption when they look at the cost? No, they do the worst possible thing. They don't drink at all during the week. They save their drinking time for the weekend and get absolutely slaughtered.

In Ireland, we tend to drink more regularly than that, or at least we did. Sure, the weekends would traditionally entail a little more drinking but not at binge levels as far as I know. Irish people drink less during the week these days and more at the weekends. We are heading towards Sweden and that's not somewhere I want to be.
The further south you go, alcohol is cheaper, less restricted, less taxed, freely available everywhere and they don't have the same level of drinking problems as we do further north. Why is that?

What we need to do in Ireland and similar countries is to try and change our view of alcohol. We need to change our drinking habits and culture rather than try and bury the problem under a pile of taxes and restrictive opening hours.

The sceptic in me might say that a lot of politicians are publicans and minimum pricing only serves to make off-license alcohol more expensive to drive people back in pubs. Personally, I think the pub is the best place to drink alcohol but the choice should be mine and not forced upon me by our elected officials. If I want to drink at home in a responsible manner, I shouldn't be penalised.

Chances are, minimum pricing will not affect me personally because the beer I drink tends to cost about €2.50 per bottle and up. I just wish the government would do something rather than increase the the financial burden of the many because of the alcohol abuse of a few.

What would happen if duty on alcohol was slashed. Vendors, be they pubs or off-licenses/supermarkets can sell alcohol 24 hours a day. If you could grab a beer almost anywhere. Would we, as a nation, drink ourselves in to oblivion? We might go nuts and think Christmas has come early but I suspect that would only last a short while before we got back to normal and I suspect drink less, or at least spread our drinking to save levels rather than keeping it all for the weekend. Getting drunk should be socially unacceptable. It's seen as a macho thing to do, get so drunk you can't remember what a great time you had. I think it's better to try and not get drunk and just enjoy a few beers in a social setting, have a laugh and not have to suffer the next day.

According to this article by Séan Billings almost a year ago, the evidence shows that in the past, when we increased alcohol prices there was a rise in alcohol consumption, not a reduction. I think this hits the nail on the head.

Even when alcohol sales began declining in 2003 alcohol related harm and disorder actually increased, showing that it was not the problem drinkers mending their ways, but the moderate drinkers cutting down that caused the downward trend

So, a problem drinker will always be a problem drinker, no matter how you tax them. The only people alcohol price increases harm are moderate to low drinkers who might now think twice about reaching for a bottle of wine. The ones with a problem or likely to display anti social behaviour will not be put off. Something else needs to be done, not just something that makes it seem that something is being done when in fact it's not.

I welcome any comments on this rant.