Alcohol Action Ireland (AAI) is disappointed by the government’s decision not to increase excise duties on alcohol in today’s budget. The decision means this is 11th year in succession that duties have not been touched, so their public health value continues to be eroded by inflation and are now at least 15% lower in real terms.
With excise duties on tobacco rising by a very substantial €1 on a pack of cigarettes and a new tax being introduced for vapes, it is clear the government understands the value of price controls as a policy option to change consumer behaviour and promote public health. AAI therefore finds it disappointing that government refuses to make the alcohol industry – which records massive profits at the expense of people’s mental and physical health as well costing the Irish state €12 billion annually in alcohol harms – pay any more towards the cost of cleaning up the mess its product causes.
AAI CEO Dr Sheila Gilheany said: “Another budget, another sop to the alcohol industry by a government that loves to promote its public health credentials when it comes to tobacco but chooses to look the other way when it comes to alcohol, which is strange considering alcohol harm likely costs the state twice as much as tobacco.
“It is disappointing that the government appears to have absorbed industry spin as opposed to looking at the facts around alcohol, which is Ireland’s cheapest and most widely available drug and which hasn’t seen an excise duties increase in 11 years. In addition, the government has seen fit to extend tax reliefs to cider producers. This hasn’t been helped by the fact that the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly doesn’t appear to have made the case for alcohol excise duties increase, again surprising given that alcohol costs the health service 11% of its budget. It is worth noting that a 15% increase in excise duties could pay for an additional 2,482 nurses as well as reducing alcohol consumption which is a key driver of pressure on hospitals.”
The apparent lack of input from a health perspective into today’s decision to freeze alcohol duties is a symptom of a more general lack of government co-ordination around alcohol policy, which is currently spread out over multiple government departments including Health, Justice, Finance, Education, Media, Tourism, Enterprise and Agriculture. A major goal of Alcohol Action Ireland is the establishment of an Office for Alcohol Harm Reduction which would drive coherent government policy development on alcohol and would particularly seek to coordinate across government departments.
Dr Gilheany continued: “Ireland has previously developed successful strategies to other public health concerns such as reducing sugar consumption and smoking. There is much from those strategies that can be applied to addressing the harms from alcohol, such as the establishment of the Office for Tobacco Control which, according to Micheál Martin, “gave us capacity to deal with the issue.”
“An Office for Alcohol Harm Reduction is surely just common sense and as to why Ireland hasn’t yet taken such an approach is maybe not such a mystery – it certainly serves vested interests to have a multitude of government bodies with no clear oversight of the issues around alcohol harm. With that in mind, we are calling on all political parties to include this proposal in their manifestos for the next general election. This modest outlay could be a game changer in recalibrating Ireland’s relationship with alcohol.”
ENDS
Notes:
Read more about Office for Alcohol Harm Reduction here
Read more about alcohol’s costs to society here
AAI’s media language guide can be accessed here
