Alcohol, children & young people

Youth drinking back at crisis levels

As outlined in our strategic plan, Alcohol Action Ireland believes that all young people are entitled to a childhood free from alcohol harm, and that protecting children from harm is not just a public health issue but a human rights one.[i]

Unfortunately, in recent years, after a decline from the mid-2000s to mid-2010s, youth drinking has surged back to crisis levels:

• Consumption among 15-24-year-olds rose from 66% in 2018 [ii] to 78% in 2025, [iii] approaching the early 2000s peak,[iv] when youth drinking was considered a national crisis;
• Young people are now the largest alcohol-consuming age group in Ireland;[v]
• 64% of young drinkers regularly binge drink;[vi] and,
• 1 in 3 young drinkers has an Alcohol Use Disorder.[vii]

Alcohol is the most commonly used substance among young people in Europe and is typically the first substance used by children in Ireland. Worryingly, when drinking begins at a young age, it is consistently associated with hazardous consumption patterns and significantly increases the risk of later dependency.[viii]

Protecting children

To protect children and young people from direct and indirect alcohol harm government policy must be multifaceted, agile, and evidence based. Naturally this means having bespoke and population-based alcohol policy to protect them from the direct harm associated with drinking, but policy must also protect children and young people from the indirect harms caused by other people’s drinking.

Firstly, children and young people, as well as the unborn, must be protected from the impact of alcohol-related harms that include issues such as: 

• Drinking during pregnancy can harm the unborn and cause Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). These are a group of disorders caused by prenatal alcohol exposure and are associated with a range of lifelong physical, mental, learning/educational, social, and behavioural difficulties.[ix] Ireland is estimated to have the third highest prevalence of Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) in the world.[x]
• In Ireland, an estimated 1 in 6 young people are impacted by parental problem alcohol use, an adverse childhood experience that can have lasting impacts into adulthood.[xi]
• Every year in Ireland, tens of thousands of children start drinking.[xii] Starting to drink alcohol as a child, which is the norm rather than the exception in Ireland, is more likely to lead to heavy episodic drinking and is a known risk factor for later dependency. 
• Children and young people have the highest levels of binge drinking of any age cohort in Ireland,[xiii] and have the fifth highest weekly alcohol consumption rates in the EU.[xiv]

Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD)

Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) are a group of disorders caused by prenatal alcohol exposure and are associated with a range of lifelong physical, mental, learning/educational, social, and behavioural difficulties.[xv] FASD comprise Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), partial Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, Alcohol Related Birth Defects, and DSM-5 Neurodevelopmental Disorder – Prenatal alcohol exposure.[xvi] The symptoms of FASD may vary from child to child but are lifelong.[xvii]

FASD is caused by the consumption of any amount of alcohol at any time from 6 weeks before conception (either parent) or for the duration of the pregnancy. Alcohol is a teratogen, a substance that negatively affects the embryo and foetus during pregnancy.[xviii] Alcohol has an adverse effect on the developing brain, and on body organs, and the greater the amount of alcohol that has been consumed during pregnancy, the greater the risk to the development of the embryo and foetus.

Tragically, Ireland has the third highest level of FASD in the world, possibly affecting up to 7.4% of the population as highlighted by the HSE.[xix] The best available evidence estimates that about 600 Irish babies are born each year with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), with a further 9-10 times this number of babies born annually who have other Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders.[xx] This means that up to 15 babies a day are being born with FASD.

Parental Problem Alcohol Use

Growing up in a home with parental problem alcohol use (PPAU) has been recognised internationally as an adverse childhood experience (ACE)[xxi] for over 20 years, and the negative physical and mental consequences of this have been well established.[xxii]

In Ireland, at least 1 in 6 young people suffer the unnecessary impact of alcohol-related harms at home. Therefore, it is likely that today more than 200,000 children in Ireland are living with the traumatic circumstances of a childhood where parental problem alcohol use is a frequent event.

Furthermore, comprehensive research analysing the occurrence and co-occurrence of ACEs and their relationship to mental health in the United States and Ireland found that 1 in 4 Irish people may have grown up in a household blighted by alcohol. ^[xxiii] Including the other carer in the household, this means there may be over 1.5m people across all age ranges in Ireland have been affected by problem alcohol use in the home.^[xxiv]

Unfortunately, research shows that living with PPAU can increase the risk for other ACEs, including neglect (both physical and emotional), abuse (emotional, physical, and/ or sexual), parental mental health issues, parental separation, divorce, or early death of a parent.[xxv]

The only way to tackle PPAU and its harms to children is to identify it, talk about it, offer services and support to those affected – especially children, and to limit its frequency by reducing alcohol consumption at a population level. This, however, will take a coordinated, whole-of-government response, which places the reduction of alcohol and its harms to children at the heart of government policy.

Silent Voices, an initiative of Alcohol Action Ireland, seeks to highlight the harm caused by PPAU and its impact across the lifespan.  

 

Read more about the Silent Voices campaign here [xxvi]

Marketing to young people

Alcohol is one of the most heavily marketed products in the world with estimates on annual spending ranging from $7.7bn to $17.7bn.[xxvii] [xxviii] In Ireland, the annual spend on marketing alcohol to the public was conservatively estimated to be €115m in 2021.[xxix]

The purpose of marketing is clear – it is to create a need or desire for a product. When it comes to alcohol this is most interesting because alcohol is not a staple, it is not a necessary purchase, therefore a market must be created for it – and new drinkers must be recruited to create, sustain, and expand that market.[xxx] We have known for some time alcohol advertising seeks to recruit new drinkers and increase sales among existing consumers of alcohol, including young people and children, as well those with alcohol use disorder and dependency.[xxxi]

That’s why the role of alcohol marketing in encouraging, normalising, and glamourising alcohol consumption among young people cannot be underestimated. The international literature is clear – the greater the level of exposure to, or engagement with, alcohol marketing, the more likely young people are to drink alcohol.[xxxii] 

Research commissioned by Alcohol Action Ireland and carried out by the Health Promotion Research Centre in NUI Galway found that Irish children are exposed to large volumes of alcohol marketing, which increases their likelihood of drinking alcohol and engaging in risky drinking behaviour.[xxxiii]

Ireland’s Public Health (Alcohol) Act (PHAA) contains provisions to restrict alcohol advertising to young people. While these moderate measures are helpful, they also fail to protect children in the main space inhabit – online.[xxxiv] Therefore, it is little wonder that research revealed Diageo, the multinational alcoholic beverage company, to be the number four advertiser to children in Ireland.[xxxv]

The advertising landscape has changed dramatically since the turn of the century and has been marked by a shift towards digital media and social media marketing. The widespread adoption of digital technologies and online social networks has revolutionised the way marketers engage with consumers.[xxxvi] While this has brought many benefits for businesses and customers, it has also brought new, and ever evolving, issues. This is especially true in relation to child protection in the online space, especially the digital and social media marketing of harmful products, such as alcohol, to children and teenagers.

The reason this is of such concern is because results from research and systematic reviews show a significant association between exposure to alcohol advertisements and drinking intentions, attitudes, and behaviours, particularly among children and adolescents. It is within this context that we must view the recent surge in youth drinking in Ireland over the past decade.[xxxvii]

Furthermore, a lacuna in the law has allowed alcohol companies to use zero-alcohol products, with identical branding to the master brand, to circumvent the PHAA. The alcohol industry’s three-pronged use of 0.0 alcohol products, as a tactic to circumvent the child protection provisions contained in the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018 (PHAA), as a means of boosting brand recognition and sales of the alcohol main brand, and a way of displacing soft-drinks, means that children and young people are being saturated in a sea alcohol advertising.

Despite representing a little over 1% of the total alcohol market, 0.0 alcohol products have been subject to aggressive advertising, with major brands using identical branding to their full-strength counterparts in spaces where alcohol advertising is otherwise restricted by the PHAA. This is exactly what the PHAA was supposed to protect against, especially in terms of alcohol advertising being seen by children, because evidence shows that exposure to alcohol marketing encourages children to drink at an earlier age and in greater quantities than they otherwise would.[xxxviii]

Youth drinking

There have been improvements in some respects in relation to youth drinking, including an increase in the average age at which young people start drinking and an improvement in Ireland’s position compared with EU averages.

Unfortunately, in recent years a narrative has emerged, propagated by the alcohol industry, that youth drinking is perhaps no longer an issue in Ireland. However, the data shows that youth alcohol consumption has surged in the last decade with little or no political or media scrutiny of this trend or its impact. A close analysis of the facts indicates that 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 half of young driver fatalities having an alcohol component.