Alcohol Action Ireland press release, Tuesday, 8 September 2026
Ahead of International Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) Awareness Day tomorrow (Wednesday, 9 September), Alcohol Action Ireland (AAI), the national independent advocate to reduce alcohol harm, is calling on government to develop a coordinated, cross-departmental strategy to reduce FASD in Ireland, and to ensure there is no further delay to Ireland’s world-leading health information labelling of alcohol products, which is key to such an effort.
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. Ireland is estimated to have the third highest rate of FASD in the world, affecting up to 7.4% of the population, which likely costs the Irish exchequer around €2.4 billion a year.
AAI CEO Dr Sheila Gilheany said: “The theme of this year’s FASD Awareness Day is ‘FASD Grows Up’, which highlights the important reality that children with FASD become adults with FASD, who continue to face significant challenges throughout their lives because of this entirely preventable condition.
“FASD is often an invisible disability, with most children having no visible signs of disability at birth. Indeed, difficulties due to FASD may not manifest until preschool or school age. Shockingly, there are no standard diagnostic policies or guidelines for diagnosing or treating children with FASD in Ireland. There is no national strategy for the prevention of FASD or for the response to children and adults with FASD.
“There are, however, a number of policies and strategies that include actions to reduce alcohol use in pregnancy and prevent FASD. One of the most important of these is the implementation of health information labelling of alcohol products, which was set to come into force in May this year but was postponed until September 2028 after ferocious lobbying by the alcohol industry, which has fought tooth and nail at every opportunity to derail this vital public health initiative. Alcohol labels tell people the facts, that alcohol causes liver disease and cancer, while they also have a warning graphic not to drink during pregnancy.
“We know that labelling works. Last year the warning labels started appearing on many alcohol products as producers looked to start complying with the law. A recently published study that aimed to assess the early exposure and perceptions of the new labels, as well as the associations between the exposure and cancer knowledge/readiness for behaviour change, showed that two in five people who saw the labels reported that it made them think about alcohol’s impact on health, while one in four people reported deciding to buy less or no alcohol in that shopping trip.
“This is the alcohol industry’s worst nightmare, with leading producers such as Heineken stating that health information labelling is a significant risk to their profits. We know that the alcohol industry views the delay as ‘a reprieve, but the conversation on alcohol labelling is far from over’, with Diageo actually increasing its lobbying efforts on alcohol labelling in Ireland and Europe despite pulling back on its multi-million euro lobbying efforts in the EU as part of its ongoing restructuring programme. This industry is still actively and aggressively lobbying for no pregnancy warnings and remains hellbent on keeping people in the dark over risk of FASD.”
Last December, AAI raised concerns following comments attributed to Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon by his Italian counterpart, Francesco Lollobrigida, that the Irish government has decided to abandon labelling and will instead move the issue into Europe.
Dr Gilheany continued: “To be clear, because of long-standing industry influence there is no harmonising EU legislation on the use of health warnings on alcohol products and any attempt to move labelling into Europe must be seen as a concerted attempt to derail labelling completely. It would end any hopes of ever seeing health warnings on alcohol products in Ireland or indeed in Europe. What is abundantly apparent is that Irish law – the Public Health (Alcohol) Act, which mandates the introduction of labels – is being systematically attacked by the alcohol industry lobbying machine.
“People have a right to know the risks from alcohol to make informed decisions about their alcohol consumption. If this was any other industry, whose product caused so much harm, that didn’t have such huge political clout, there is no doubt that people would be warned of the health risks. In this regard, Ireland is not unique, with regulations providing for visible pregnancy warnings taking over two decades to be implemented in Australia and New Zealand again because of industry influence.
“The decision to delay labelling until 2028 was wrong and should never have been taken. But Ireland still has an opportunity for global leadership in relation to comprehensive health information labelling and ensure labelling goes ahead without further delay. Other countries will follow Ireland as they have done on other public health matters. Doing otherwise would simply be putting the private wealth of global giants before not just those people with FASD, but the health and wellbeing of all Irish citizens.”
ENDS
