Alcohol Action Ireland press release, Tuesday, 7 October 2025
Alcohol Action Ireland (AAI), the national independent advocate to reduce alcohol harm, is disappointed by the government’s decision not to increase excise duties on alcohol in today’s Budget. The decision means this is 12th 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 substantial 50c on a pack of cigarettes, 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 increase alcohol excise duties, which would have the dual benefit of helping reduce population-level consumption and its associated harms, while at the same time raising much needed revenue to help cover the cost of cleaning up the mess alcohol causes.
AAI CEO Dr Sheila Gilheany said: “Another budget, another sweetener 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. The alcohol industry in Ireland records massive profits at the expense of people’s mental and physical health and costs the exchequer an estimated 2.5% of GDP annually in health, justice and lost productivity costs – for 2024 that’s around €14 billion.
“This hasn’t been helped by the fact that Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill doesn’t appear to have made the case for alcohol excise duties increase, which is surprising given that alcohol costs the health service 11% of its budget. It is worth noting that a 15% increase in excise duties would equate to an extra €189million for the public purse, money that is badly needed to deal with the multiple harms caused by alcohol. €189million is enough to fund around 2,480 nurses, 2,650 ambulance staff or 5,350 new gardai.
“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, while it is yet more proof that this government has absorbed industry talking points as opposed to looking at the facts around alcohol, which is Ireland’s cheapest, most harmful and most widely available drug. Despite industry claims, Healthy Ireland surveys show that alcohol consumption in the age group 15-24-year-olds is rising substantially, from 66% in 2018 to 75% in 2024. Action such as an increase in excise duties is needed otherwise the government is only storing up more problems across multiple areas.”
A strategic goal of AAI 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. Alcohol policy is currently spread out over multiple departments including Health, Justice, Finance, Education, Media, Tourism, Enterprise and Agriculture, often with contradictory and incompatible aims. For example, the Public Health (Alcohol) Act, which comes from the Department of Health, aims to reduce population-level alcohol consumption, while the proposed Sale of Alcohol Bill from the Department of Justice looks to increase availability.
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. As we have seen recently with the fiasco of delaying health information labels of alcohol products, there is a lack of high-level leadership around alcohol policy which, coupled with the ease of access the alcohol industry has to government figures, has created a space in government where industry misinformation has been allowed to flourish.
“With that in mind, we are calling on all political parties to support such an Office, which would be a game changer in recalibrating Ireland’s relationship with alcohol.”
ENDS
