Alcohol market review 2022. Raising the bar: an examination of the alcohol market in Ireland 2022 (Alcohol Action Ireland)

The Review highlights the market revenues – €5.555bn in 2021, demonstrating who benefits and how, only a handful of companies are monopolising the Off-Trade receipts of €2.505bn. Ireland’s alcohol industry – producers, merchants and retailers, spent an estimated €116m last year advertising alcohol products that cost our society: citizens and taxpayers alike, an estimated €1.9 billion alone in health-related alcohol costs – 11% of the overall health budget. Alcohol Action have forensically tracked the flow of State welfare, exposing an unhealthy relationship between the alcohol industry and the State, and its agencies, who through subsidy and preferential aid, contributed €115m in support over the last decade.

The Review demonstrates how an inflated and self-promoting reputation obscures the alcohol industry’s negative contribution to extraordinary levels of alcohol harm in Irish society, and disallows strategic action to cohesively address Ireland’s biggest drug problem. While highlighting the level of state funding in addiction services and community based Alcohol & Drug Taskforces, the Review demonstrates how little dedicated funding is allocated to much needed specific alcohol interventions, programmes or services, and indicates there is a significant gap between treatment demand and actual provision.

Read more https://www.drugsandalcohol.ie/36945/