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Ireland approves MUP and alcohol labelling law

The Irish government has approved new legislation to tackle alcohol misuse, including minimum unit pricing, compulsory nutritional labelling and health warnings on bottles.

Leo Varadkar has unveiled “groundbreaking” legislation to tackle problem drinking in Ireland

Details of the Public Health (Alcohol) Bill were published on Wednesday after receiving the go ahead from the Cabinet on Tuesday, and reveal plans to bring the average annual alcohol intake in Ireland down from 11 to 9.1 litres per person by 2020.

“Ireland needs to change its damaging attitude to alcohol,” said minister for health Leo Varadkar. “There’s a huge difference between having a drink on occasion with friends, and indulging in regular binge drinking.

“The costs are huge: from the damage to personal health and to society, absenteeism, the burden placed on the health services, public disorder and violence, traffic accidents and the associated mental health consequences.

“The evidence about Ireland’s drinking habits is shocking. Four out of 10 drinkers typically engage in binge drinking.

“This bill addresses alcohol as a public health issue for the first time by tackling price, availability, marketing, advertising and labelling.

“By taking this approach and confronting the problem in a wide range of ways, I am confident we can make a huge difference to public health.

“We have talked about these measures for long enough. Now is the time to make it happen.”

Advertising restrictions and labelling

The bill aims to make it illegal to sell or advertise alcohol on sale at a price below €0.10 per gram of alcohol to target “harmful and hazardous” drinkers and prevent cheap alcohol sales.

Data collected from the National Alcohol Diary Survey found that ‘standard drink’ or units are “widely misunderstood” by consumers.

Under the new measures, labels on alcohol bottles will have to state how much pure alcohol in grams is present in the drink and the calorie content, as well as health warnings (including for pregnancy), and a link to a public health website.

Not only this, but alcohol will no longer be stored alongside “every day” products, and will have to be separated as part of ‘structural separation’ methods or confined in a closed cabinet.

Promotional offers will also be restricted, such as reduced prices or free offers, and will extend to ‘happy hour’ style promotions.

Meanwhile, advertising, marketing and sponsorship will also be restricted permitting only information about the product in an effort to ensure brands do not “glamorise” alcohol or make it appeal to children.

Varadkar said the bill will be published soon and the government aims to bring it into effect before the end of the year.

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