Alcohol Action Ireland press release, Thursday May 1 2025
With this weekend’s May bank holiday coming a mere two weeks after the Easter bank holiday, when the HSE had to implore the public to consider all their options before attending an emergency department (ED) due to long waiting times as a result of significantly increased numbers of patients – when only the “sickest and most urgent” were prioritised – Alcohol Action Ireland (AAI) believes it’s high time that government took a proactive, preventative approach to reducing hospital trolley congestion by fully implementing strategies to reduce alcohol consumption across the population as a whole and therefore reduce the associated alcohol harms.
Alcohol consumption has a huge impact not only on ED admissions – almost 3 in 10 ED presentations are caused by alcohol consumption – but right across frontline services. 1,500 hospital beds are in use every day due to alcohol-related illness, while alcohol harm costs at least 11% of the healthcare budget. Prevention is key to reducing this burden, and essential to this is for government to fully implement the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018 (PHAA).
AAI CEO Dr Sheila Gilheany said: “The PHAA contains a suite of measures designed to reduce alcohol consumption across the population as a whole and therefore reduce the associated alcohol harms. However, despite being passed nearly seven years ago, not all sections of the PHAA are in force yet, which is diluting the legislation’s health benefits. The different sections of the PHAA are designed to complement one another, and the legislation’s public health benefits will only be fully realised when all the sections are enforced. With Ireland still drinking at a level 40% higher than HSE lower-risk guidelines, this is an imperative.”
Two of the main areas yet to be enforced are to do with advertising and with health information labelling of alcohol products. Scheduled to come into force in May 2026, labelling has been back in the news recently when Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe took a line straight from the industry playbook and said the regulations needed to be ‘re-examined’ despite already being subject to more than 1,000 days of debate in the Oireachtas and being passed with cross-party support.
The section of the Act that regulates the content of alcohol advertisements is particularly resisted by industry as it restricts the content of ads to facts. In addition, ads will be required to include the same health information as on the labels such as cancer warnings and details of the HSE alcohol information website, www.askaboutalcohol.ie, with the aim of providing unbiased material about the risks from alcohol consumption.
Dr Gilheany continued: “Ireland is rightly praised internationally for its leadership in passing the PHAA and since it was passed alcohol consumption per capita has dropped by 10%, which is positive. However, the fact that not all sections are in force yet shows the power of the alcohol industry’s lobbying efforts to stymie and delay progress. The section on labelling will ensure consumers are told the truth that alcohol causes cancer and liver disease, along with that product’s calorie count, while the section on content of ads will strip out the industry myths which are used to recklessly promote alcohol consumption. This is essential if we are to break the false associations between alcohol and lifestyle. The PHAA works as a package and these two sections are designed to work in tandem with one another.
“If the government is serious about tackling alcohol harm, which kills more than 1,500 people every year 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. 1,500 hospital beds are in use every day due to alcohol-related illness – beds that if available would seriously help reduce ED trolley numbers. How many more bank holidays are people going to have to put up with compromising their health and wellbeing due to government inaction on implementing its own legislation?”
ENDS
