Alcohol Action Ireland press release (Thursday, 29 January 2026 )
Alcohol Action Ireland (AAI), the national independent advocate to reduce alcohol harm, has published an updated edition of its dial-moving report into youth drinking in Ireland, ‘Youth drinking in Ireland: What’s the real picture?’
The report is updated with data from the 2025 Healthy Ireland Survey carried out by the Department of Health and is expanded to include sections on digital alcohol marketing, home deliveries of alcohol, recovery and treatment services for young people, as well as the importance of ensuring a focus on youth drinking in the new drug and alcohol strategy. It draws on evidence from national and international sources and points to considerable improvements in some respects including an increase in the average age at which young people start drinking and an improvement in Ireland’s position compared with EU averages.
However, while drinking among young people declined from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s, since 2015 that downward trend has reversed with consumption by 15- to 24-year-olds surging by 12% – from 66% in 2016 to 78% in 2025. What is also clear is that when drinking is initiated it is accompanied by high levels of particularly risky and hazardous consumption – 64% regularly binge drink and one in three young drinkers has an Alcohol Use Disorder. This also forms part of the picture that Ireland now has the second highest level of binge drinking across OECD countries as recently reported in the Health at a Glance report.
AAI CEO Dr Sheila Gilheany said: “This updated report is an eye opener in terms of the scale and trajectory of youth drinking in Ireland, which has increased by 3% in the past year alone. In recent years a narrative has emerged that youth drinking is perhaps no longer an issue in Ireland. However, this report challenges that myth in no uncertain terms. The fact that there are more than 43,000 young people with alcohol dependence across Ireland should be a wake-up call for government to start taking meaningful action to curb youth drinking.
“Alcohol remains Ireland’s largest drug problem both for young people and the wider population, with significant health impacts such as rising levels of alcohol-related hospitalisations among young people and tragically half of young driver fatalities having an alcohol component.
“It is the norm in Ireland for underage drinking, with 50,000 children starting to drink annually with consequent impact on their current and future health. This is not surprising given the saturation levels of alcohol marketing to which they are exposed, particularly online.
“Alcohol is one of the most heavily marketed products with the annual spend on alcohol marketing conservatively estimated at €115m in Ireland alone and young people are an important target audience for the alcohol industry. It is little wonder that Diageo, the multinational alcoholic beverage company, is the number four broadcast advertiser to children in Ireland. Furthermore, a lacuna in the law has allowed alcohol companies to target young people by using zero-alcohol products with identical branding to the master brand to circumvent the advertising restrictions in the Public Health (Alcohol) Act (2018) (PHAA).”
Some of the main findings in the report include:
- More than 43,000 young people aged 15-24 are living with alcohol dependence across Ireland
- While drinking among young people aged 15–24 declined from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s, since 2015 that downward trend has been reversing. Alcohol consumption levels for young people aged 15-24 increased from 66% in 2018 to 78% in 2025.
- The decline in consumption since the highs of the 2000s was driven by younger adolescents, particularly those under 17 – who should not be drinking anyway.
- In 2019 young people in Ireland were, on average, 16.6 years old when they had their first alcoholic drink. In 2002 that number was 15.6 years. However, while young people are delaying alcohol initiation, once they begin drinking they consume alcohol at a level significantly above the national average (78% v 71%).
- Every year approximately 50,000 children start drinking in Ireland. Starting to drink alcohol as a child, which is the norm rather than the exception in Ireland, is a known risk factor for later dependency.
- Hazardous drinking, including binge drinking, is commonplace (64%) among young people and one in three young drinkers has an Alcohol Use Disorder.
- The most recent data available showed that 16% of all deaths in Europe among 15- to 19-year-olds were attributable to alcohol, while for 20- to 24-year-olds this figure was 23%.
Dr Gilheany continued: “It is not inevitable that alcohol harm to youth and wider society should be experienced at high levels in Ireland. This report points to inexpensive, proven policy measures which can be taken to address these issues, including the full implementation of the PHAA and coherent approaches to alcohol across government such as increases in excise duties to keep pace with inflation and enforcement of existing legislation on drink driving and the supply of alcohol to children.
“The continued rise in youth drinking in Ireland is a red flag for a coming tsunami of harms from alcohol for individuals, families and society in general, now and into the future. It is imperative that the new drug and alcohol strategy, which is set to be published soon, has a focus on reducing youth drinking levels. Treatment services for young people must be improved and increased, while regulation around alcohol advertising to young people on social media and video sharing platforms needs to shift from ‘remove harm when you find it’ to ‘prove that your system prevents harm’. The Department of Justice must also begin data collection around home deliveries of alcohol, ensure enforcement of the law, and develop legislation to close the lacunas in the law which allow minors access alcohol through home delivery services.”
Prof Bobby Smyth, Clinical Professor, Dept of Public Health & Primary Care, TCD said: “We’ve seen some evidence of a slight delay in onset of drinking by Irish children but the pattern of drinking tends to be high risk once drinking does start. There is still a hard core of parents who insist that providing alcohol to their 15- and 16-year-old children is a good idea in spite of the evidence that it is in fact harmful, but the number of parents who recognise the folly of this permissive approach is growing. The unrelenting exposure of children to alcohol advertising and sponsorship does though mean that parents who do the right thing are swimming against a tide of more negative influence.”
ENDS
