| Alcohol consumption down
THE Irish are going on the wagon. New statistics reveal we are now drinking
less than at any time in the last 10 years.
But the drop in our boozing habits may have more to do with the smoking
ban, the clampdown on drink-driving and getting older than a conversion
to a healthier lifestyle.
Irish people guzzled their way through almost 15 litres of alcohol for
every adult in the country in 2001 but last year this dropped by 6.7 per
cent to 13.4 litres.
The drinks industry believes that Irish alcohol consumption has now peaked
and will continue to decline as teenagers mature and drink less as they
get older. But before we go out for a celebratory pint to toast our new-found
maturity, more sobering statistics have emer-ged from the British Institute
of Alcohol Studies which show that the Irish spend a higher proportion
of their income on drink than any other country in the EU.
We spend 10 times more on drink than the Greeks do and even allowing for
our punitive excise duties spending on alcohol in Ireland runs at 1,675
euros
a year per adult compared with 571 euros spent by the Danes.
According to the British Institute, Irish people are the biggest binge-drinkers
in the EU.
Even with the smoking ban which has been in force for three years now,
the Irish still buy 70 per cent of their drink in pubs and in restaurants.
But Michael Patten, chairman of the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI)
said alcohol consumption had peaked and our drinking levels have been
declining slowly since 2001.
Out-of-date statistics should not be used when it comes to policy-making,
Mr Patten said.
The figures for the decline are contained within a study by Anthony Foley
of the Business School of Dublin City University (DCU) which found a 6.7
per cent reduction in the amount of alcohol consumed per adult between
2001 and 2006. |
