Alcohol Action Ireland press release, Wednesday, June 4, 2025
Alcohol Action Ireland (AAI), the national independent advocate to reduce alcohol harm, welcomes the findings regarding alcohol in the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study ‘Trends in Health Behaviours, Outcomes and Contexts: 1998 – 2022’ but cautions that more needs to be done to keep these trends going in the right direction – and that the findings regarding tobacco highlight just how effective regulations on the price, availability and marketing of health harming commodities can be to transform our children’s health and wellbeing.
The international research study – which was conducted in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for Europe and carried out by the Health Promotion Research Centre at the University of Galway on behalf of the Department of Health and was released yesterday – highlights a welcome drop between 2002 and 2022 in the percentage of 10- to 17-year-olds who reported having ever been really drunk, as well as a moderate decrease in the proportion of young people aged 15-17 who had ever drunk alcohol that reported having their first alcoholic drink at age 13 or younger. Irish figures mirror recent European trends from the 2024 European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD), which also shows a declining trend in alcohol consumption among schoolchildren.
AAI CEO Dr Sheila Gilheany said: “While the HBSC and ESPAD figures for alcohol are of course to be welcomed, it must be stressed that we cannot afford to rest on our laurels and expect these trends to just continue. It is of note that while there is an overall decrease in alcohol trends over the past two decades there has been a rise since 2018 and attention needs to be focused on what can be done to address this.
“What is really fascinating is the 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 the ban on advertising, consistent rises in excise duties and of course warning labels.
“The introduction of alcohol health information labels, which is one part of the Public Health (Alcohol) Act (PHAA) and is due to come into force next May, has been recently called into question by some figures in government. I would strongly urge these people to look at the decreases in tobacco use among schoolchildren in this report and say that labelling doesn’t work.”
It is known that labelling is protective only over a longer time period. What happens with labelling is that it subtly but profoundly changes the minds of children, so that today’s children grow up seeing health harming commodities such as tobacco and alcohol differently from previous generations. Cigarette labelling didn’t have an immediate effect but its impact is plain to see in the HBSC findings.
Dr Gilheany continued: “What makes Ireland’s tobacco regulations so effective is that the different sections of the legislation that cover availability and marketing work together and complement each other. The Public Health (Alcohol) Act was passed in 2018 with cross-party support and yet seven years later not all sections are in force. This waters down the public health benefits of this groundbreaking legislation.
“The two further sections of the Act in relation to advertising that remain to be commenced are Section 13 which places restrictions on the content of alcohol advertisements and Section 18 which relates to advertisements in publications. Section 13 in particular is ferociously resisted by industry as it restricts the content of alcohol ads to facts, stripping out the industry myths which are used to recklessly promote alcohol consumption. In addition, ads for alcohol products will be required to include health information such as cancer warnings and details of the HSE alcohol information website, with the aim of providing unbiased material about alcohol risks and to break the positive associations between alcohol and lifestyle. Even if commenced today, it will take three years before the section is enforced, so that would be a 10-year delay on legislation that was signed into law in 2018.
“As is demonstrated by the HBSC tobacco findings, regulations are most effective when all measures are enforced, giving the maximum public health benefits that the legislation was designed for. If the government is serious about tackling alcohol harm, which kills four people every day and costs the state €12 billion annually, then it needs to stop dragging its heels and fully implement all sections of the PHAA.
“There is strong public support for controls on alcohol marketing and a need for more information on alcohol with polling indicating over 70% in favour of such measures. We must stop this deference to industry and implement the law without any further delay.”
ENDS
