I welcome Senator John O'Mahony's remarks about the Public Health (Alcohol) Bill. It is great to see movement on it, considering that it has been seven years in the making. In December 2009 alcohol was included in the national substance misuse strategy. In the intervening seven years we have failed our fellow citizens by allowing alcohol misuse to be an acceptable part of our culture. The Bill will go a long way towards helping to change our attitudes to and relationship with alcohol. On a daily basis I see the mental health issues, devastation and heartbreak caused for families all over the country. We must remember that we are enacting the Bill to protect them and future generations. It is important to know how much we are drinking if we are trying to stay within the low-risk weekly guidelines on alcohol consumption and it becomes even more important to track our alcohol intake when one considers that the most comprehensive survey of alcohol consumption ever carried out in Ireland reveals that we underestimate what we drink by about 60%.

Alcohol marketing, including advertising, sponsorship and other forms of promotion, increases the likelihood that adolescents will start to use alcohol and drink more if they are already using alcohol. Young people’s drinking patterns have a direct effect on their health, development and welfare. Therefore, reducing their exposure to alcohol marketing is a child protection issue, yet every day, in numerous ways and through numerous media, children and young people are continually exposed to positive, risk-free images of alcohol and its use. Owing to the lack of effective regulations, young people are poorly protected from these sophisticated and powerful influences on their drinking behaviour and expectations. They are bombarded with positive images of alcohol through the marketing of brands and products. In effect, the alcohol industry has become a child's primary educator on the use of alcohol. Marketing can shape youth culture by creating and sustaining expectations and norms about how to achieve social, sporting or sexual success; how to celebrate, relax and belong. The failure to protect children from exposure to alcohol marketing is associated with earlier and increased alcohol consumption. Restricting advertisements for alcohol products to content about their nature will mean that advertisements will be less likely to glamorise alcohol or make it appealing to young people as they will no longer see alcohol products aligned with physical performance, personal success, social success and a variety of other positive outcomes.

Minimum unit pricing is a targeted measure designed to stop strong alcohol being sold at very low prices in the off-trade, particularly supermarkets, where alcohol is frequently used as a loss leader and sold below cost. The easy and widespread availability of such cheap alcohol has contributed to a dramatic shift in alcohol purchasing and consumption habits from pubs to the off-trade sector which now accounts for the majority of alcohol sales in Ireland. Minimum unit pricing is able to target cheaper alcohol relative to its strength because the price is determined by and directly proportionate to the amount of pure alcohol in the drink product. Minimum unit pricing will be effective in reducing the level of alcohol consumption; the harm caused by alcohol, including deaths, hospital admissions, crime and workplace absences and the associated costs. In the analysis it was estimated that with a €1 minimum unit price, the number of deaths attributable to alcohol would be reduced by approximately 197 per year after 20 years, by which time the full effects of the policy would be seen owing to the time lag involved in many serious alcohol-related illnesses such as cirrhosis of the liver and alcohol-related cancers. We would also see almost 6,000 fewer hospital admissions per year and a reduction in alcohol-fuelled crime and the number of workplace absences. The total societal value of these reductions is estimated at €1.7 billion.

The alcohol companies will lobby to have the core elements of the Bill changed. We need to listen to words of warning from Dr. Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, WHO, who stated in April 2013 that he development of alcohol policies was the sole prerogative of national authorities. She said that, in the view of the WHO, the alcohol industry had no role in producing the formula of alcohol policies which had to be protected from distortion by commercial or vested interests.

I would welcome enactment of the Bill by both Houses without the undue influence of the alcohol industry. We need to do this for the well-being of our fellow citizens, the future of the country and to ensure a reduction in the impact of alcohol on families across the country.