Alcohol Action Ireland press release, Wednesday, 4 February 2026.
Alcohol Action Ireland (AAI), the national independent advocate to reduce alcohol harm, welcomes the announcement on 3 February that Wales has passed regulations to continue with Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) for alcohol and to increase the minimum unit price by 30%, bringing it into line with the rate in Scotland.
MUP is a way to establish a ‘floor price’ below which alcohol cannot be legally sold, essentially setting the lowest price an alcoholic drink can be sold at. MUP aims to reduce alcohol-related harm by ensuring that the exceptionally cheap, strong alcohol that was widely available is curbed. MUP was proposed for Ireland in 2013 and introduced in January 2022.
AAI CEO Dr Sheila Gilheany said: “The announcement by the Welsh Parliament will go a long way to help address the harms that alcohol causes to individuals, families and society in Wales. International research shows strong evidence that this policy lever helps reduce alcohol-related deaths and hospital admissions, thereby saving lives and easing pressure on the health service.
“In Ireland MUP is set at €0.10 per gram of alcohol. Therefore, a standard drink (10gms of alcohol) the equivalent of half a pint of beer, a small glass of wine or a single measure of spirits, cannot be sold for less than €1. The MUP threshold was first proposed in 2013 and introduced in 2022 and has remained at €0.10 per gram ever since, so its public health benefit has been eroded by inflation. The Welsh have just increased MUP by 30% and AAI is calling on the Irish government to also increase MUP by 30%, which would be keeping in line with inflation over that period.”
2025 research by University of Sheffield shows that shop-bought alcohol today in Ireland is around the same price that it was 20 years ago, with the introduction of MUP only bringing it back to 2004 levels. Alcohol affordability measures people’s ability to buy alcohol, which is a function not just of the price of alcohol but also of disposable income. In 2024 alcohol in the off-trade was 85% more affordable than in 2004. Affordability is a key driver of alcohol consumption in Ireland, which has doubled in the past 50 years.
Dr Gilheany continued: “Alcohol is Ireland’s cheapest, most harmful and most widely available drug, that kills 1,500 people a year and causes multiple health conditions, with around 11% of the healthcare budget being used for alcohol-related illnesses and injuries. The World Health Organization estimates that in high-income countries such as Ireland alcohol harm amounts to around 2.5% of GDP annually in health, justice and lost productivity costs. For Ireland for 2024 that would equate to €14bn.
“In Ireland, people can drink to harmful levels for relatively little. Health harm from alcohol is caused not only by the amount of alcohol consumed over months and years, but also patterns of drinking such as binge drinking. A majority of drinkers in Ireland consume alcohol in a manner that is risky to their health. In fact, Ireland has the second highest level of binge drinking across the OECD, while the Health Research Board estimates that nearly 600,000 people in Ireland are classified as having an alcohol use disorder (AUD), of which 90,000 are at a severe level.
“There have been improvements in recent years around alcohol consumption in Ireland and MUP has played a role in this. However, consumption in Ireland is still at a very high level and worryingly youth drinking is rising. In 2013 the government set a target for the year 2020 to reduce alcohol consumption to 9.1 litres of pure alcohol per capita. However, the target was missed and we are still some distance from realizing this figure. If Ireland was drinking within the HSE lower-risk guidelines – which themselves are seen as too high by international standards and are currently in the process of being reviewed – as a country we would be drinking 35% less alcohol every year.
“MUP is one measure to tackle alcohol harm. By targeting the sort of alcohol consumption that causes significant health, social, and economic problems – the cost of which is paid for by the state – it saves taxpayer money. However, the effects of inflation will wipe out many gains if action is not taken to adjust the MUP threshold so increasing it by 30% is just a common sense approach, there is nothing outlandish about it.
“AAI is therefore calling on Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill to increase the rate of MUP in Ireland by 30% to €0.13 per gram of alcohol.”
ENDS
