Alcohol Action Ireland press release, Tuesday June 17 , 2025
Alcohol Action Ireland (AAI), the national independent advocate to reduce alcohol harm, is disappointed but not surprised by the alcohol industry’s recent call for government to decrease excise duties in the next Budget, showing once again that they value lining their shareholders’ pockets more than the lives and wellbeing of ordinary Irish people.
Excise duties on products such as alcohol and tobacco exist because these are no ordinary products. Taxes serve a dual purpose of raising funding for the state which carries the burden of their harms and in helping to change price-sensitive behaviours. However, in recent years the government has taken very different courses of action around these two health-harming products, with regular increases in tobacco excise duties but no increases for alcohol since 2014, so their public health value continues to be eroded by inflation and are now at least 15% lower in real terms. Concerningly the amount of excise duty as a proportion of total tax take is going down –– from 2.8% of net receipts in 2014, to 1.1% in 2024.
In its Pre-Budget Submission, AAI is calling for an increase in alcohol excise duties by at least 15% and that going forward it should be automatically linked to the Consumer Price Index.
AAI CEO Dr Sheila Gilheany said: “The 2024 Healthy Ireland survey found 73% of the population consume alcohol compared with 17% who smoke. While alcohol consumed per capita annually is showing some welcome reductions, partly as a result of public health measures such as Minimum Unit Pricing, as a nation we are drinking 35% above the current HSE lower-risk drinking guidelines. In addition, our binge drinking rates have shown a worrying increase in the past year – Ireland ranks 8th across OECD countries for this dangerous drinking pattern. Meanwhile youth drinking, which had been showing a decline over the past two decades is actually inching upwards again as seen in the recent Health Behaviours in School-Aged Children (HBSC) report.
“To see the benefits that increased excise duties bring to public health initiatives, one need look no further than the HBSC report which highlights a huge decrease in the percentage of girls and boys who reported being current tobacco smokers, which was evident across all age and social class groups. Fewer than 5% of 15- to 17-year-olds are smokers today compared with around two thirds who consume alcohol, bearing in mind that it is illegal to sell either product to under-18s. This points to the effectiveness of Ireland’s smoking regulations to protect children, including consistent rises in excise duties, the ban on advertising and warning labels.”
So why the difference in approach between alcohol and tobacco? The answer lies in the access and influence which the global alcohol industry has to government. A recent study published in the British Medical Journal found high levels of alcohol industry penetration and few safeguards against industry influence in all 24 jurisdictions analysed. However, Ireland was the only European state to record industry penetration across all five indices analysed, including areas such as government granting benefits to the alcohol industry, government officials or politicians with current or former roles in the alcohol industry, and industry participation in alcohol policy formulation.
The impact of such influence has recently been seen with heavy pressure being put on the government to delay the introduction of health information labelling, a modest measure which will vindicate consumers’ right to know some of the risks from alcohol amid the swirl of industry myths.
Beyond alcohol duties there is also a need to consider other ways to ensure that the alcohol industry pays for the harm caused by its products. AAI is calling on government to:
- develop a new ‘polluter pays’ alcohol levy system, with funding raised to be ringfenced for alcohol harm reduction strategies
- introduce a mechanism for automatic uprating of Minimum Unit Pricing in line with inflation otherwise it will lose its public health value
- advertising or marketing of alcohol should not be provided with tax relief
- provide funding to the HSE to develop its own trauma-informed treatment services, as well as funding Alcohol Care Teams within all major hospitals
- provide dedicated funding to give the national Hidden Harm framework – that recognises the adverse childhood experience of growing up with parental problem substance use – momentum and urgency
- provide immediate top-up funding for youth mental health services and initiatives
Dr Gilheany continued: “Alcohol carries a significant financial burden to the state in terms of health care, criminal justice and loss of workplace productivity. The World Health Organisation conservatively estimate these costs in the region of 2.5% of GDP – around €12 billion annually. Alcohol duties only bring in a small fraction of the costs at just €1.2 billion annually. The alcohol industry argues that their product also brings in VAT and other taxes, but this ignores the fact that all business pay these taxes without their products putting 1,500 people in hospital every day. Shop bought alcohol is actually 85% more affordable today than it was in 2004 and even in pubs it is 15% more affordable.
“It is the ordinary taxpayer who is left to pay the billions-of-euros cost of alcohol harms if government continues to give the alcohol industry a free pass on excise duties. Indeed if the cost of alcohol harm was paid for from people’s personal taxes such as Income Tax, USC and PRSI, more than 34 cents from every euro paid in tax by every taxpayer in Ireland would be going to covering the cost of alcohol harm, while the alcohol industry continues to record massive profits.
“This is totally unfair and unjustified. It is time for government to increase alcohol taxes by at least 15% and on an ongoing basis link their levels automatically to the Consumer Price Index. Anything less begs the question, who is the government serving?”
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Find out how much you pay every month to cover the cost of alcohol harm here
