Alcohol consumption in Ireland - are we finally ready to admit we have a problem?

[Purple]

Have you a source for that odyssey? According to it is on the increase, not decrease.

And yet the actual data shows a small drop in 2019.

So obesity is a far bigger health problem; it kills way more people and costs the State about 3 times as much in additional health spending.
I'm all for minimum unit pricing but not without a sugar/fatty/yes, you are a bad parent so we have to do this/ tax.

 

[odyssey06]

This is from 2019:

Alcohol receipts for the year ended show a 0.05% decline, however when an estimated population data for 2019 is applied (CSO: population >15 years old – 3,912.6m) the figures for consumption, as a per capita, stand at 10.78 litres, indicative of a small but encouraging reduction – 2.13%, year on year.

2019 data on alcohol consumption indicative of a small but encouraging reduction - Alcohol Action Ireland

Alcohol Action Ireland today (Wed, 18 March) note the data released by Revenue: provisional alcohol clearances and receipts 2019. This data indicates that Ireland’s alcohol consumption remains high at 10.78 litres per capita. Alcohol receipts for the year ended show a 0.05% decline, however when...

alcoholireland.ie

 

[odyssey06]

And yet the actual data shows a small drop in 2019.

So obesity is a far bigger health problem; it kills way more people and costs the State about 3 times as much in additional health spending.
I'm all for minimum unit pricing but not without a sugar/fatty/yes, you are a bad parent so we have to do this/ tax.

If you are only interested in counting the cents, if it kills way more people it may end up saving the State in pensions and other social supports.
People don't live forever in perfect health. If they don't die at 60 from a heart attack or smoking, they live until their 80s on long pensions, medical card prescriptions, nursing home care etc

 

[Purple]

If you are only interested in counting the cents, if it kills way more people it may end up saving the State in pensions and other social supports.
People don't live forever in perfect health. If they don't die at 60 from a heart attack or smoking, they live until their 80s on long pensions, medical card prescriptions, nursing home care etc

No, that's the great thing about smoking; it kills you reasonably quickly (and you pay al that extra tax while you are killing yourself). Smokers may actually save the country money and with all that erectile dysfunction it causes they have fewer children to feed.

Fat people start having health problems in their 20's but they can still live into their 80's. They'll cost a fortune before you have to knock the back wall of the house out and have them removed in a net with a cherry picker. Environmentally they are a disaster as well; more food eaten, more methane produced, more cotton for their clothes, more fuel burned bringing them, well, everywhere (they'll not great walkers). You can't even criticise them the way you can with smokers and alcoholics; you don't hear people saying "Don't you alcoholic shame me!"

 

[24601]

Things aren't as bad as some on here are making out. Consumption is still down around 14.5% on 2000 notwithstanding increases since 2010. Minimum unit pricing is pure nanny state nonsense that does nothing other than to transfer wealth from poor people to supermarkets.

Also, our figures are likely to be skewed by tourism despite the efforts of the WHO to exclude this from the figures. The WHO Report notes the following:

The litres of alcohol consumed by tourists in a country were based on the number of tourists who visited a country, the average amount of time they spent in the country, and how much these people drink on average in their countries of origin (estimated on the basis of per capita consumption of recorded and unrecorded alcohol). Furthermore, tourist alcohol consumption also accounted for the inhabitants of a country consuming alcohol while visiting other countries (based on the average time spent outside of their country and the amount of alcohol consumed in their country of origin). These estimations assumed the following: 1) that people drink the same amounts of alcohol when they are tourists as they do in their home countries, and 2) that global tourist consumption is equal to 0 (and thus tourist consumption can be either net negative or positive)

We market ourselves as the land of craic and pints of the Black Stuff so it's reasonable to assume that the 9m visitors do a fair bit of drinking and more than they do in their countries of origin.

The consumption figures for Ireland are as follows:

Year	Litres Consumed per Capita (per WHO stats here)
2000​	15.1​
2005​	14.2​
2010​	12.1​
2015​	12.5​
2018​	12.9​

 

[24601]

That's always the case. If we are introducing minimum unit pricing we should introduce a fatty (sugar) tax.
I'd be in favour of both.

How would that work out of curiosity?

 

[Purple]

How would that work out of curiosity?

Place a tax on foods which contain a high level of Sugar/Glucose/Corn Syrup, just like they do on alcohol.

 

[Ceist Beag]

We already have one on drinks (source) so it would be a matter of extending this to other sugary foods

 

[24601]

I'm conscious of de-railing this thread but what's the obsession with sugar? Why not tax pizzas, burgers, crisps, large bags of pasta etc? The drivers of obesity are a lot more complicated than sugary foods. Why not just cut out the middle-man and tax people based on their body fat percentage and spare the rest of us the misery? It all becomes so arbitrary when you start levying taxes like this. Orange juice is just as bad as many soft drinks but is excluded from the SSDT. There's loads of extremely calorie-dense foods that are perceived as "healthy" - where's the avocado or cashew-nut tax lobby?

In any event, back on topic, it's pretty clear that minimum unit pricing is just an effort to make the lives of poor people a little more miserable. Alcohol consumption is way less now than it was in 2000 despite the relative fall in its price. I thought Fr. Matthew died in the 19th century.

 

[Purple]

In any event, back on topic, it's pretty clear that minimum unit pricing is just an effort to make the lives of poor people a little more miserable.

Alcohol is the opium of the masses?

Why not just cut out the middle-man and tax people based on their body fat percentage and spare the rest of us the misery?

That'd work too. I'd be in the lower tax band but certainly above the exemption threshold.

 

[Leo]

Minimum unit pricing is pure nanny state nonsense that does nothing other than to transfer wealth from poor people to supermarkets.

Maybe we can figure out some way of taking it from the supermarkets and use it to offset the 10% of total budget the HSE spends on alcohol related diseases and injuries.

 

[24601]

Maybe we can figure out some way of taking it from the supermarkets and use it to offset the 10% of total budget the HSE spends on alcohol related diseases and injuries.

We have already figured that out. We take in a huge amount of excise on alcohol. It was over €1.2bn in 2019. I'd imagine people who drink also pay income tax too.

 

[Leo]

We have already figured that out. We take in a huge amount of excise on alcohol. It was over €1.2bn in 2019. I'd imagine people who drink also pay income tax too.

That only covers the cost if everyone who drinks doesn't avail of any other service or benefit provided by the state or earns enough to be in the relatively small cohort of earners who are net contributors to state coffers. But of of course that isn't remotely realistic and so excise doesn't come close to covering alcohol related healthcare costs.

 

[Purple]

That only covers the cost if everyone who drinks doesn't avail of any other service or benefit provided by the state or earns enough to be in the relatively small cohort of earners who are net contributors to state coffers. But of of course that isn't remotely realistic and so excise doesn't come close to covering alcohol related healthcare costs.

Yea, but it comes closer than the sugar tax does to covering the cost of obesity. Fat people cost a fortune, there's no getting around them, sorry, it.

 

[odyssey06]

That only covers the cost if everyone who drinks doesn't avail of any other service or benefit provided by the state or earns enough to be in the relatively small cohort of earners who are net contributors to state coffers. But of of course that isn't remotely realistic and so excise doesn't come close to covering alcohol related healthcare costs.

Alcohol sales were something like €7.5 billion in 2018. VAT is another €1.5 billion on top of the excise.

Moderate consumption of alcohol in all risks mortality studies indicate possible health benefits to consumption in terms of reduced heart attacks.

I'd like to see how the figures for 'alcohol related healthcare costs' were arrived at.

 

[Purple]

I'd like to see how the figures for 'alcohol related healthcare costs' were arrived at.

It's €1.2billion. Details in the link.

 

[odyssey06]

It's €1.2billion. Details in the link.

Thanks, VAT and excise together might just about be sufficient to cover all of the below costs.
But certainly it wouldn't leave much in change for Finance Minister to fund anything other than the below costs.

Although in a wider analysis, there would also need to be consideration given to the profits and employment generated by pubs, restaurants and distillers etc

I have excerpted quote below for reference.
In her paper on alcohol attributable deaths and hospitalisations Martin (2009) calculates the proportion of death and hospitalisations for illness such as cancer and cardiovascular disease attributable to problem alcohol use. She concludes that 10.3% of all hospitalisations over the period 2000 to 2004 could be attributed to problem alcohol use. It is reasonable therefore to attribute 10% of the cost of hospital care to alcohol related illnesses.

Thinking out loud, is it accurate to assign 10% of the cost of entire healthcare budget to 10% of the admissions?
Would there not be a significant amount of fixed costs \ scales?

The report summarises the other costs in millions based on the year 2007:

• Cost of alcohol related suicides €167m
• Cost of alcohol related road accidents €526m
  • This is 37% of the total cost of road accidents
• Cost of alcohol related crime €1,189m
  • Note that the direct cost of alcohol related crime is estimated at €319m based on 12% of policing and 7% of courts time
• Cost of output lost due to alcohol related absence from work €330m
• Cost of alcohol related accidents at work €197m
• Cost of alcohol related premature mortality €110m

 

[Leo]

Moderate consumption of alcohol in all risks mortality studies indicate possible health benefits to consumption in terms of reduced heart attacks.

Absolutely, I'm certainly not arguing that alcohol should be banned. The health costs above and additional societal costs of problem drinking stem from a minority of alcohol consumers. A larger percentage of problem drinkers are price driven, so increasing the costs of the likes of vodka you could use to strip paint should disproportionately impact those and underage drinkers while having little or no effect on the majority who like an occasional glass or two of something with their dinner.

 

[odyssey06]

Absolutely, I'm certainly not arguing that alcohol should be banned. The health costs above and additional societal costs of problem drinking stem from a minority of alcohol consumers. A larger percentage of problem drinkers are price driven, so increasing the costs of the likes of vodka you could use to strip paint should disproportionately impact those and underage drinkers while having little or no effect on the majority who like an occasional glass or two of something with their dinner.

By 'price driven' do you mean they purchase the cheapest available... but if they are problem drinkers it doesn't necessarily mean they will drink less, just allocate more income to continue purchasing the cheapest strongest available even if that's €20 not €13 for vodka?
And does that mean beer and wine needed to be targeted by MUP or should it just have been used for spirits or products over 20%?

 

[Leo]

By 'price driven' do you mean they purchase the cheapest available... but if they are problem drinkers it doesn't necessarily mean they will drink less, just allocate more income to continue purchasing the cheapest strongest available even if that's €20 not €13 for vodka?
And does that mean beer and wine needed to be targeted by MUP or should it just have been used for spirits or products over 20%?

Assuming they can afford to spend that much more which isn't the case for many problem drinkers. Scotland would have a similar drinking culture to ours and the results there showed a non-significant increase in household spending (61p per week) but a drop in the weekly purchasing of alcohol that was concentrated in the households that purchased the largest volumes.