The figures were revealed as the Health Service Executive (HSE) prepares to launch a new alcohol awareness campaign today aimed at delaying the age at which young people start to drink.
The campaign will use shock TV ads -- similar to those used in drink driving ads -- to appeal to young people to abstain from alcohol until they are 18 and not to binge drink.
New figures obtained by the Irish Independent show that we appear to be drinking less per adult head of population compared with 10 years ago.
In 1997, the 2.55 million adult population drank an average of 250 litres each. By 2007, the adult population had grown to 3.2 million and these drank an average of 230 litres each.
But experts are cautioning against jumping to the conclusion that we are drinking less.
The figures are based on the amount of alcohol duty collected by the Revenue Commissioners and do not include any alcohol bought abroad.
Alcohol expert Dr Joe Barry said he was surprised at the figures as the indications had been that the amounts being consumed had actually risen.
"But regardless, we still need to deal with the problem of too much alcohol consumption," he said.
The figures -- which were calculated by the Irish Independent on the basis of provisional excise receipts from the Revenue Commissioners -- do not account for the growing number of young people who begin drinking when they are in their teens.
The most recent information on our drinking habits comes after the government published details of restrictions on alcohol sales and staggered opening hours for pubs and nightclubs as part of a two-pronged strategy to tackle binge drinking.
Today the HSE will launch its alcohol awareness campaign to try reduce the number of teens binge drinking.
Studies show that those who begin drinking at a young age are more likely to suffer serious health effects, as well as being more likely to become alcoholics. Already doctors in Ireland are treating children as young as 15 for alcohol abuse.
Young people in Ireland are among the biggest binge drinkers in Europe.
Last month a Department of Health survey found the number of respondents reporting that they had six or more standard drinks at least once per week has fallen, from 45pc in 2002 to 28pc in 2007.
Static
The provisional figures show that our drinking patterns changed over the past number of years with sales of wine on the up -- but beer sales have remained largely static for the past decade.
In 2007 we consumed an estimated 34 million bottles of spirits. This equates to 9.25 million litres of pure alcohol -- a 7.2pc jump on the 8.65 million litres in 2006.
Cider sales took a hit thanks to the bad summer weather with 81,288,191 litres consumed.
This represented a drop of almost 1pc after a jump of 8.4pc the previous year.
Wine sales continue to rise year on year with 82,971,169 litres consumed last year. This was a rise of 7.2pc on the previous year, netting €230.2m for the Exchequer. However, it is more than double the amount knocked back in 1997. A decade ago 30,288,578 litres were consumed, bringing in just one third of the 2007 figure in taxes (€83m).
Last year 963 million pints were drank, compared to 949 million in 1997. A further breakdown shows the amount of beer being imported has risen significantly while sales of beer in Ireland have fallen year on year since 2002.
While the figures from the Revenue Commissioners do not show where the alcohol is consumed, a growing number of people are buying at the off-licence and drinking at home. Studies have shown that 70pc of all alcohol sold was consumed in pubs six years ago. However, this has now fallen to just 50pc.
Source: Irish Independent, May 19th 2008.
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