Alcohol Action Ireland press release, Thursday, 30 April 2026
Alcohol Action Ireland (AAI), the national independent advocate to reduce alcohol harm, welcomes the publication of the Lancet Commission on Liver Health in Europe, which calls for urgent action to tackle Europe’s rising liver disease burden.
Nearly 780 people die from cirrhosis or liver cancer every day in Europe — conditions that are largely preventable. The major new report warns that liver disease is an escalating public health crisis across the WHO European Region and calls on governments to implement stronger prevention strategies. These include:
- Introducing health warning labels on alcohol products and restricting digital marketing, particularly to young people
- Acting on commercial determinants of health through stronger regulation of alcohol and ultra-processed food marketing and taxation
- Expanding viral hepatitis testing and care for migrants and underserved populations
- Strengthening integrated care models across primary care, specialist services, and community settings
- Integrating liver health into national and global noncommunicable diseases (NCD) strategies, recognising steatotic liver disease as a preventable NCD
- Improving access to affordable medicines through joint procurement and pricing cooperation among EU Member States
- Integrating liver health metrics into existing NCD monitoring frameworks to ensure accountability
AAI CEO Dr Sheila Gilheany said: “This report highlights the impact of alcohol consumption on liver health with drinking, alongside viral hepatitis and obesity, the principal causes of liver-related mortality in Europe. The report also highlights how the marketing, pricing, and availability of alcohol are hugely influential factors when it comes to people’s health.
“It is particularly informative that the report’s first key recommendation to combat liver disease is to introduce health information labels on alcohol products. In Ireland, mandatory labelling of alcohol products was set to come into force on 22 May this year but was postponed until September 2028 after ferocious lobbying by the alcohol industry, which has fought tooth and nail at every opportunity to derail this vital public health initiative. Labels would have told people the facts: that alcohol causes liver disease and fatal cancers.
“The decision to delay may have been conscience-free for some but it most definitely was not consequence-free, as this report shows in no uncertain terms. Along with the impact on liver disease, in the period of the delay more than 2,000 people in Ireland will have been diagnosed with cancer caused by alcohol. This includes some of the most common cancers in Ireland such as breast and bowel cancer with one in every eight breast cancers arising from alcohol.
“There will also be upwards of 10,000 babies born with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), which is a completely preventable neuro-developmental condition that has lifelong implications and is estimated to cost the Irish exchequer €2.4 billion a year in terms of service need. Labels are crucial to efforts to reduce incidences of cancer, liver disease and FASD in Ireland and indeed to change the conversation about this product which is heavily marketed as risk-free and essential to everyday living. What is essential is that there are no further delays to labelling’s implementation.”
The Lancet Commission report also calls for restrictions on the digital marketing of alcohol, particularly to young people, along with controls on alcohol pricing, availability and marketing – the World Health Organization’s (WHO) ‘Best Buys’ – as key policy measures for governments to introduce.
Dr Gilheany continued: “We know that digital alcohol marketing employs subtle tactics, including influencer marketing, sponsored content, and user-generated content, to effectively promote drinking behaviours among young people and that policymakers are already way behind industry tactics designed to ensure young people drink as soon as possible and as often as possible.
“This is reflected in the surge in youth drinking in Ireland over the past decade, with consumption by 15- to 24-year-olds increasing from 66% in 2016 to 78% in 2025. What is also clear is that when drinking is initiated it is accompanied by high levels of particularly risky and hazardous consumption – 64% regularly binge drink and one in three young drinkers has an Alcohol Use Disorder. The continued rise in youth drinking in Ireland is a red flag for a coming tsunami of harms from alcohol for individuals, families and society in general, now and into the future.
“We also need to make the alcohol industry pay more towards the cost of cleaning up the mess its product causes. 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. Alcohol excise duties bring in less than 10% of this cost – €1.2bn.
“If government is serious about tackling not just liver disease but improving public health in general then they must increase excise duties on alcohol, which have not been raised in 12 years so their public health value continues to be eroded by inflation and are now at least 15% lower in real terms. Affordability is a key driver of alcohol consumption and therefore alcohol harm. Shop-bought alcohol is 85% more affordable today than it was in 2004 and even in pubs it is 15% more affordable. Excise duties serve a dual purpose of raising funding for the state which carries the burden of alcohol harms and in helping to change price-sensitive behaviours. Every Budget without an increase in excise duties is a missed opportunity to improve the health of the nation.”
AAI chairperson and liver specialist Prof Frank Murray said: “The Commission recommends a number of actions relating to alcohol, including that the industry should have no role in public health policy formation, just like the tobacco industry. There is also the recommendation that industry should be made bear the cost of alcohol-related harms so that the taxpayer is relieved of that burden. The Commission also strongly recommends the introduction of health information labels, which were due to be introduced in Ireland in a month’s time but have been deferred. The facts on the label, that alcohol causes fatal cancers, liver disease and is harmful to the unborn, are proven beyond doubt. People have the right to know the risks associated with alcohol consumption so they can make informed decisions.”
ENDS
