Irish alcohol consumption continues to fall
Alcohol consumption in Ireland fell 0.7% in 2015, however the government’s policy target “may not be appropriate”, warns one economist
Alcohol consumption in Ireland continues to fall year-on-yearThe decrease is in line with a long-term downward trend, which has seen alcohol consumption in the country fall 24% since 2001.
France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Austria, Czech Republic, Estonia and Poland all now have higher alcohol consumption levels than Ireland, says Anthony Foley, economist at Dublin City University Business School in his paper Estimate of Alcohol Consumption per Adult in 2015.
“The level and trend in average alcohol consumption are important elements in public policy evaluation and design. Average per adult alcohol consumption decreased by 0.7% in 2015 compared with 2014; from 11.086 lpa [litres of pure alcohol] to 11.013 lpa,” said Foley
“It is useful to put the Irish figure into an international perspective. The latest OECD Health Statistics reports an OECD average alcohol consumption for 2013 or latest year of 8.8 lpa; Ireland in this database is measured as 10.6 lpa.”
However, Foley warns that Ireland’s policy target of matching the OECD average “is not necessarily appropriate”.
“The OECD database includes far distant and culturally specific countries such as Turkey and Israel with very low alcohol consumption around 2.6 and 1.4 lpa respectively and several other countries with low-ish consumption such as Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico and USA. The non EU countries in the database have an average consumption of 7.1 lpa. The 21 EU members included in the OECD database have an average consumption of 9.9 compared to the 10.6 recorded in the database for Ireland. Ireland is not widely out of line with this. These figures exclude unrecorded consumption which can be relatively high in some countries.”
Maggie Timoney, Chair of the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland and Chief Executive of Heineken Ireland added: “When framing public policy issues pertaining to alcohol, it is important that we rely on an appropriate fact base. The drinks industry is committed to working with the Government in the context of the Public Health (Alcohol) Bill to find workable and effective solutions to address misuse.”
In December 2015, the Irish government approved new legislation to tackle alcohol misuse, including minimum unit pricing, compulsory nutritional labelling and health warnings on bottles.
