Just what is necessary to make the Government address the sale of excessively cheap alcohol?
Powerful vested interests, involving manufacturers and retailers, are opposed to regulation. But the harm being done to society through alcohol abuse has been so well catalogued that remedial action can no longer be postponed. Legislation on minimum pricing was to have been introduced last year. But disagreement among Ministers and pressure of work on other matters intervened. The sale of alcohol as a “loss leader” in supermarkets and elsewhere has now to be confronted.
Successive governments have made commitments to tackle the international perception of “the drunken Irish” but with little effect. Alcohol sales have, it is true, fallen in recent years. But that reflects the state of the economy, rather than legislative intervention or social change.
Source: Irish Times, 27/03/13
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