Irish singer and Senator Frances Black gave up alcohol when she was 28 years old and entered into a rehabilitation programme for 15 months
Black, who is a trained addiction counsellor and founded the Rise Foundation to help families of alcoholics, was elected to the Seanad in 2016. Since then she has been working on the Public Health (Alcohol) Bill, and campaigning for cancer warnings to be displayed on alcohol products.
She’s also been lobbying for drinks not to be displayed next to everyday items in supermarkets like nappies.
“Over 1,500 beds are taken up every single day with people with alcohol-related issues. It has cost the Exchequer €2.3bn,” Black told Irish Country Magazine.
“I went into politics to make sure that the bill got through in its entirety. We are not trying to make this a nanny state or to ban alcohol.”
"This is really about simple measures: minimum unit pricing, labels on the bottles showing the calorie content and the cancer risks, and to have product sparation in the shops so that alcohol isn't beside the nappies and bread as if it was a grocery item."
Black added: “We want people to know that alcohol is a psychoactive drug. Three people a day die from it. And alcohol plays a role in over 50pc of suicides. To argue against this bill is to trivialise that. How do you weigh that up?”.
Source: Geraldine Gittens, The Irish Times, 25/05/18
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