EU may scupper Leo’s minimum booze price plan
LEO Varadkar’s plans to introduce minimum prices for alcohol in a bid to cut binge drinking could be scuppered by the EU within weeks.
The Health Minister’s Public Health (Alcohol) Bill will see the price of a can of beer more than double in some cases to €2, a bottle of wine cost over €8.50 and a bottle of spirits cost €28.
Mr Varadkar said he was not trying to ‘cancel Christmas or ban alcohol,’ but admitted the aim, in line with expert medical advice, was to get the average Irish adults consumption of 11 litres of pure alcohol per year down to the European average of 9 litres – a fall of nearly one-fifth.
But Europe might strike first. The Scotch Whisky Association has taken a case against a legislative proposal by the Scottish parliament for minimum unit pricing to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
The ECJ ruling is expected imminently, but a preliminary opinion suggests that minimum pricing could be blocked as it hampers free trade and should only be considered once alternative measures, such as increased taxation, have proved ineffective.
Minimum pricing here would be set at 10 cent per gram of alcohol to tackle cheap drink sales, and the rate could be increased later.
Despite adverse reaction from representatives of the drinks industry, Mr Varadkar was determined: ‘We are not a nanny state, but we have decided to lead. As with the workplace smoking ban and the sale of plastic bags, we will lead Europe.’
He said he hoped to have the legislation through by next summer, assuming the Government is returned. But he admitted it would be ‘a year or two after that’ for other aspects of the Act to be rolled out – such as advertising restrictions – because regulations would have to be drafted.
Under the plans, static adverts will be banned within 200 metres of schools, colleges, creches and playgrounds, and from public transport.
Magazine and print ads cannot be featured in publications aimed at juveniles, nor constitute more than 20% of content – as will be the case with adverts at stadia, with goalposts and goal areas excluded. Sports sponsorship is largely left untouched.
Cinema adverts can only be shown for films with an over-18 cert, and there will be a 9pm watershed for TV adverts. Such commercials will have to be ‘strictly informative about the product’ and cannot ‘glamorise’.
The Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland said the Bill would not meaningfully address misuse while the additional advertising restrictions were excessive.
But Kathleen O’Meara of the Irish Cancer Society welcomed the moves, remarking:: ‘One drink a day is associated with a 9% increase in the risk of breast cancer, while 3 to 6 drinks daily increases the risk by 41%.’