Government delays Bill to ban sale of energy drinks to under 18s
The Government's plan to delay by 18 months progress on legislation to ban the sale of energy drinks to under 18s has been criticised by the Senator who championed the Bill.
Independent Senator Sharon Keogan, who introduced the Public Health (Restriction on Sale of Stimulant Drinks to Children) Bill, said stalling it could undermine efforts to protect young people from the 'health risks posed by high-caffeine, high-sugar energy drinks'.
As well as banning the sale of energy drinks to children the legislation also provides for mandatory health warnings similar to those on tobacco and alcohol products.
It targets drinks with more than 150mg of caffeine per litre, or which contain the stimulant taurine. The drinks would be banned in schools, youth clubs and any venue attended by under 18s, and restrictions would be placed on advertising.
READ MORE
'While marketed in flashy cans and trendy branding, the contents of these drinks have serious physiological implications,' said the Co Meath Senator.
Ms Keoghan pointed to research which linked energy drink consumption 'to anxiety, sleep disturbance, obesity, and heart issues among adolescents'.
She added that some brands contained up to 17 teaspoons of sugar in a single bottle, and the standard 250ml energy drink contained the caffeine content of five cans of cola.
Similar bans in countries like Lithuania, Latvia, and Hungary have already resulted in a drop in consumption rates among minors, she added.
Independent Senator Rónán Mullen said in some cases caffeine levels are between 160mg and 200mg per can. 'That is double the amount found in an average cup of coffee which would be approximately 80mg depending on the strength.'
He pointed to observations by the HSE's lead on obesity, Dr Donal O'Shea, 'that they are bad for your ability to concentrate, attention span and if you have any tendency towards anxiety they drive that'.
'He says they should simply not be freely available to purchase as they are at the moment.'
Mr Mullen said many parents know very little about these drinks and the extent of consumption by their children.
Minister of State for Health Jennifer Murnane O'Connor said it would take 18 months to months to carry out the 'necessary evidence-gathering, research and examination of appropriate policy options and stakeholder engagement'.
She acknowledged the commitment in the programme for government to 'explore restrictions on the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks, including a ban on their sale to children'.
Ms Murnane O'Connor said the Department of Health is 'at the very early stages of considering the process' but 'we are committed to safeguarding health and wellbeing and seeking what is best policy and practice to achieve that'.
A 'thorough assessment' is 'essential' to 'evaluate any public health concerns with regard to energy drink consumption by children and young adults in Ireland and to determine appropriate policy measures'.
The Minister said policy measures 'must be grounded in the best available scientific evidence'. Any regulations to restrict or ban sales to children 'will need to be robust, appropriate and based on the weighing up of the scientific evidence'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
39 minutes ago
- Irish Times
Frustration in Government over continual revelations from CHI
For weeks the Government had been bracing for more trouble at Children's Health Ireland (CHI), the embattled group that runs paediatric hospital services in Dublin . There has been frustration over waiting times for children who need orthopaedic surgery and a scandal over the implantation of unauthorised springs into three children. By mid-May another significant controversy was brewing; a review indicated that up to 60 per cent of a type of hip operations carried out at Temple Street Hospital were not necessary. However, just days after the hip report, real trouble came out of left field, with questions raised over the use of special waiting list clinics. The Sunday Times highlighted an internal CHI report that alleged potential irregularities in the State's initiative to tackle waiting lists. The Department of Health has said it had never seen or heard of the unpublished report, which dates back to 2021/22. Health Service Executive (HSE) chief Bernard Gloster also said he was unaware. But in recent days CHI told Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill that its content had been 'discussed' at performance management meetings with a senior HSE executive. READ MORE The report said a doctor, identified only as Consultant D, had been paid €35,800 for seeing patients at special clinics paid for by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF). The report questioned whether the special NTPF clinics were needed and suggested the children could have been treated using other capacity in the public system. [ Audit of CHI waiting lists ordered to ensure productivity in public hospitals, Minister for Health says Opens in new window ] The report was devastating on several levels. Taoiseach Micheál Martin is a champion of the NTPF, which forms part of Government initiatives that have seen €1.6 billion spent in recent years trying to curb hospital waiting times. Any suggestion of irregularity could undermine the wider system. Senior management across the Department of Health, the HSE and the NTPF maintain they were completely blindsided. Senior figures have acknowledged it is possible there were 'miscommunications' but insist that CHI never flagged any serious issues. Oireachtas committees will, undoubtedly, seek to pursue what the HSE was told about the CHI report in 2021 or 2022. Gloster, in a pre-arranged interview with RTÉ's 'This Week' programme on May 25th, described the CHI report as 'absolutely shocking'. 'I assure you if anything connected with, or near connected with alleged people ingratiating themselves financially in the public health system, the first step I'll be taking is to refer that matter to the gardaí,' he said. Gloster demanded to see the report from CHI the next day, and the HSE passed it to Carroll MacNeill. The report caused consternation, with worrying findings made about the NTPF clinics. More importantly, the report raised issues about patient safety. In the Department of Health there was concern that architecture put in place in the health service to deal with issues regarding the safety of patients had apparently not been utilised. [ Hip surgery audit: Almost 70% of operations in two children's hospitals 'unnecessary' Opens in new window ] The HSE is understood to have pressed CHI to refer the report to the Medical Council, the regulatory body for doctors. It warned that it would make the referral itself if the CHI did not. Last Thursday the HSE said it would bring the issues to the Medical Council, as well as to gardaí. The NTPF suspended funding to CHI pending an investigation. The report also deals with rows between staff in a particular unit. The findings are stark: 'CHI has a broken culture, created by dysfunctional relationships and challenging behaviour, negatively impacting service delivery, department dynamics and staff experiences and has the potential to put patients at risk.' The new controversy arriving after issues of hip surgery and spinal implants adds to the governance problems at CHI, which is preparing to take on operation of the new €2 billion national children's hospital. On May 27th the Minister confirmed three members of the CHI board had resigned. Another had stepped down the previous week. The Taoiseach told the Dáil it was clear the environment was 'not optimal for safety'. He said it was absolutely critical that there should be fundamental reform at CHI. Separately, the Minister for Health said 'toxic behaviours' developed over time within CHI as individuals had not got along with its board and executive. The report found there were 'significant concerns' about the prudent and beneficial management of NTPF funding and a lack of oversight of access initiatives, which are ultimately not in keeping with the memorandum of understanding between CHI and the NTPF. Carroll MacNeill sought answers from CHI about the report. Sources said CHI appeared to view the report as identifying internal human resource management issues that were addressed internally. 'They don't seem to understand there is an issue,' one senior figure told The Irish Times. The Opposition demanded publication of the report but the Attorney General advised the Minister that such a move was up to CHI. However, over last weekend this argument became rather moot. On Monday The Irish Times reported details directly from the report . It found a 'negative and toxic' work culture at a CHI hospital, with multiple staff complaining of 'unprofessional and disruptive behaviour from consultants'. It said this contributed to the undermining of care and treatment for sick children. Challenging behaviours regarding one particular part of the organisation 'appear to be the norm', the report stated. It revealed one that consultant had taken a defamation action against another and stated that it was reasonable to assume this could only arise as a result of fraught relationships within this particular unit. In a statement issued at about 9.30pm on Bank Holiday Monday, CHI said the issues raised in the report had been addressed 'and the team in question are working well'. Effectively congratulating itself, the group said: 'This is an example of taking action when issues are identified in line with good HR practice.' [ Doctors say they warned CHI of toxic behaviour by several senior medics Opens in new window ] On Wednesday The Irish Times revealed that the consultant at the centre of the review for allegedly referring patients to the NTPF-funded clinic did not fulfil his on-call hours for more than three years due to 'health issues'. He had run five weekend clinics for which he was paid an additional €35,800. The consultant was seeing twice the number of patients in the weekend clinic than during his regular weekday equivalent. CHI had brought in a locum to cover the consultant's on-call hours, at a cost of around €450,000. 'It needs to be explored how one consultant can undertake a series of NTPF-funded clinics over numerous Saturdays and during these clinics see a much greater number of patients than they are able to see in their routine public clinics, working at a very fast pace with significant throughput – a substantial undertaking of additional work – yet is unfit for any on-call duties for the past three years,' the report stated. [ CHI consultant at centre of review did not fulfil on-call hours for three years due to 'health issues' Opens in new window ] In the meantime the Minister and the Department of Health were going through answers provided by CHI, particularly on whether the report's recommendations had been implemented. CHI told the department that monthly meetings had taken place, with actions tracked and the majority 'closed out'. Separately the HSE chief executive commissioned an audit of governance and equity in patient access and waiting-list management at CHI. This aimed to look at the balance between public and private patients' access to care. A pre-scheduled meeting of the Cabinet subcommittee on health discussed the CHI issue on Wednesday . Ministers were told the HSE had referred the CHI report to gardaí who will determine what steps to take. In the meantime the service level agreement between the HSE and CHI, which underpins funding, is to be strengthened. Under new HSE structures, regional executive officers have greater responsibilities for running services in their areas. The regional chief executive for Dublin and the Midlands will have a greater involvement in working with management in CHI. But the key issue for the Government is whether it believes CHI is the body that should be given responsibility for the new children's hospital. The Minister expressed confidence in current CHI management, and some in Government believe it may be too late to implement radical change before commissioning of the hospital begins. [ CHI unable to move in to national children's hospital due to continued delays Opens in new window ] Still, frustrations remain in Government at the succession of crises involving the children's hospital group. And a further report on spinal surgery is awaited.
Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
The Irish economy grew by 22% over the past year. Yes, you read that right
Ireland's economic data was always going to be a bit special at the start of this year. But Thursday's figures were mind-bending. It is impossible to overstate the extent to which we now stand out in international comparisons. And this is not just a curiosity – it matters. The economy, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) , was 22 per cent larger in the first quarter of 2025 than one year earlier, according to the latest estimates from the Central Statistics Office . Think about it. The figures suggest that for every €1 of activity last year, there was €1.22 in 2025. Even comparing GDP in the first quarter of this year with the last quarter of 2024, there is a rise of close to 10 per cent – this is roughly the extent of growth across the euro zone over the past decade. Of course this bonkers data is not real, in the sense that it does not reflect what is happening in the underlying economy in which we all live. How could it? As has been long discussed the headline economic data is entirely distorted by the activities and tax planning of a small number of very big US tech and pharma companies. From time to time, this has created huge distortions in the figures. A decade ago, top US economist Paul Krugman famously described a 26 per cent GDP growth rate reported for the Irish economy (later revised up to over 30 per cent) as 'leprechaun' economics . At the time the figures were distorted by massive tax-driven investments by the companies concerned, including Apple, essentially a manoeuvre by the companies involved to try to keep their tax bills down as international rules changed. READ MORE Now, as one observer put it, we are seeing another 'Krugman' moment. This time the reasons are different. Big pharma companies have been rushing product over to the US to try to get drugs and key ingredients into the market before Donald Trump announces tariffs on the sector. This has led to a surge in exports, feeding into the GDP data. Many of these are manufactured here – and some are made elsewhere but organised by Irish subsidiaries and so also show up in our figures. And so we see a massive surge in Irish GDP in the first quarter of this year. A big – temporary – decline in pharma exports in GDP will follow at some stage, as the firms involved must now have massive stocks jammed into every free warehouse in the US. Much will depend on how the tariffs story plays out. [ Welcome (back) to the era of Leprechaun economics Opens in new window ] Whether Krugman renews his leprechaun offensive or not, let's not pretend this won't be noticed. Ireland's GDP data is not some irrelevance in a quirky economic corner. The amounts of money being moved through Ireland are now enormous. Daniel Kral, chief economist at Oxford Economics , calculates that Ireland – which accounts for 4 per cent of the euro zone economy – accounted for half its total growth over the past year. Analysts have taken to looking at the figures 'excluding Ireland'. How do we pull back from all of this to judge the underlying health of the economy? Total demand in the domestic economy – adjusted by the CSO to remove the multinational factors - rose just 1 per cent over the year. But we need to look under the surface here, too. Consumer spending, a good measure of how we feel, was up by a decent 2.5 per cent. But the overall figure was dragged down by a fall in business investment, presumably reflecting the international uncertainty. So households continued to spend in the first part of the year, but businesses are taking a wait-and-see approach to big capital spending. This is likely to be reflected in the jobs market as the year goes on – and here AI is also changing the game in many sectors. Consumers may get more cautious too. Uncertainty is starting to slow the economy and this is a trend we need to watch as the year goes on. The piece of data that seemed a bit out of line this week was a 30 per cent fall in corporation tax in May compared with the same month last year. This was affected by the comparison with a strong May last year – which the Department of Finance suggests was boosted by once-off factors. Two of our biggest taxpayers, Pfizer and Microsoft – pay significant amounts of tax that month. But the key early indicator for most of the big companies is June – and what happens here will give a good pointer for the year as a whole. The figures do underline one point. It is our huge reliance on the opaque affairs of four or five massive companies – and our exposure to the sectors they operate in, their own performance and complex decisions on how their tax structures are set up. Our latest bout of data exceptionalism again puts Ireland in the spotlight, when it would have been better to keep the head down. It underlines the outsize take Ireland is getting from pharma and tech activity in the EU – both contentious points in the White House. Notably, the US added Ireland to an economic watch list this week, based on the size of our trade surplus. We are very much on the radar in Washington. Our corporate tax take and manufacturing base are looked on enviously not only from the US , but from elsewhere in Europe. [ 'No long-term commitments to anything' – Ireland's economy is experiencing a silent slowdown Opens in new window ] The advance shipping of products again focuses attention on the scale of activity and tax planning in Ireland by big pharma companies. And this causes a rollercoaster of cyclical activity. But what really counts is longer-term, structural issues. Will these pharma giants decide over time – and it would take years – to relocate some of their production to the US? Will their profits and thus tax payments here be hit by Trump's policies? Or will they – or some of the tech giants – alter their corporate structures so that they pay significantly less tax here? It comes down to whether Trump's policies change the way the economic and corporate world operates fundamentally, a fair bit or not much at all. As Ireland benefits from the current system so much, the more it changes, the more risks there are for us. The coming months will tell a lot.
Irish Times
5 hours ago
- Irish Times
The Baltics are rapidly becoming a cauldron of EU growth when other parts of Europe are stagnating
It's not every day you find yourself in the Orthodox church where Alexander Pushkin 's great-grandfather was baptised. There is something calming about these dark, ornate and often windowless churches. The great-grandfather of Pushkin – the man whom many regard as the epitome of Slavic genius – was from central Africa (modern day Cameroon), a fact that adds to Pushkin's image as a romantic outsider. His great-grandfather, captured as a child by the Ottomans and gifted to the Russian emperor, rose to the position of general in Peter the Great's all-conquering army and was baptised in an Orthodox church in the centre of Vilnius, Lithuania 's very Catholic capital city. As befits a country at the crossroads of Europe, through which Napoleon, Charles X of Sweden, Hitler's Wehrmacht and, of course, Stalin's Red Army trampled, Vilnius is a city of ghosts. Before the second World War, it was known as the Jerusalem of the North, home to 60,000 Jews, of whom fewer than 2,000 survived. Today it is the bustling capital of Lithuania, a country that was once the largest state in Europe when it was the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. Those halcyon days are evident in the baroque, rococo and the later neoclassical architecture beloved of the Imperial Russians. After all, if you name your top man the Tsar, a Russified version of Caesar, it's not surprising that you'd have a weakness for Roman columns. The Russians were in Lithuania for a long time and, but for a brief period of independence from 1920 to 1941 and Nazi occupation during the war, the Russification of Lithuania continued uninterrupted from 1790 until independence in 1990. Hence Pushkin senior being baptised in Vilnius, where Orthodox churches are common and, for the older generation brought up in the Soviet Union, Russian is the default language. Somehow the Lithuanian language survived; today it is thriving. Yet Russia's presence is palpable, and with the invasion of Ukraine the sense of insecurity is heightened – as it is all throughout the three Baltic Republics of Lithuania and its two northern neighbours, Latvia and Estonia . READ MORE These three small maritime countries face the sea and have been connected with western Europe for centuries. In contrast, Russia is a land power. The Hanseatic influence, tied to Lubeck, Hamburg, London and Amsterdam by the Baltic and North Seas, give the Baltic Republics their Scandinavian feel, not to mention their Catholic and Protestant religion, which distinguishes them from the Orthodox Russians. Economically, these three countries are by far the most successful of post-Soviet Republics, anchoring themselves politically, commercially and militarily to the West, via the EU and Nato . I've yet to meet a person here who doesn't see Nato as a positive. The average person appears to see Nato as an necessary insurance policy, a shield from Russian aggression that the invasion of Ukraine evidenced so dramatically. There is little sympathy for the Kremlin, even or maybe particularly in Latvia which has the largest ethnic Russian minority of the three republics. The war in Ukraine makes their orientation to the West appear – to those I have spoken to at least – all the more logical. What does this shift to western Europe mean for this region economically? There seems to be a different attitude to tech, as I observed on an airBaltic flight between Riga and Vilnius this week: Elon Musk 's Starlink internet was free to all throughout the flight. If there is a technological solution, the Baltics use it and Musk's Starlink is an obvious network. Their view is that if it is good enough for the military, it is good enough for their citizens. Over the past two decades, the standout success of the Baltics has been this embracing of technological possibilities, leading to the creation and fostering of tech companies. Ireland has become home to a significant Baltic diaspora since the early 2000s. These neighbours are not from some backward former Soviet region, but from one of the most dynamic parts of modern Europe Since the founding of Skype in Estonia nearly 20 years ago, the Baltics have been punching far above their weight in tech and entrepreneurship. Dubbed the Silicon Valley of Europe , Estonia now has 10 tech unicorns (including Wise, Bolt, Pipedrive, Playtech, Zego, Veriff and others) in a nation of just 1.3 million . Estonia alone has the highest per capita concentration of billion-dollar tech companies in Europe (and among the highest in the world). Latvia and Lithuania are also nurturing big start-ups. Latvia produced its first unicorn, Printful (print-on-demand ecommerce), in 2021, and has other notable start-ups like airBaltic (an innovation-oriented airline) and fintech platforms. Lithuania, as well as being home to the banking multinational disrupter Revolut, is now home to two unicorns: Vinted (Europe's largest online used-fashion marketplace) and Nord Security (creator of NordVPN). Vilnius has become a fintech hub (hosting the EU's second-largest fintech cluster) and a centre for laser technology and life sciences. [ ECB cuts interest rates by quarter percentage point Opens in new window ] Estonia leads Europe in startups per capita, with 1,100 per million people (4–5 times the European average), and Baltic tech founders are celebrated for their global impact. The World Bank and the OECD often cite the Baltics as models for digital innovation and ease of doing business. As of 2023, ICT contributes around 6 per cent of Estonia's GDP, up from 3 per cent in 2012, and about 7 per cent of its workforce are ICT professionals, the highest share in the EU. Latvia and Lithuania follow close behind and well above the EU average. Around half of all private R&D in Estonia and Latvia is tech-related. As a percentage of European population, the Baltics should have about 1 per cent of EU tech unicorn start-ups; instead they have 12 per cent. Meanwhile, Lithuania leads the EU in the number of fintech licences issued and has thriving tech parks in Vilnius and Kaunas. Lithuania's ICT sector grew 50 per cent in employment over the past decade. They are not only deploying tech to create new companies, the way the government does business here is quite seamless because of mass digitalisation. The problems caused by one Irish hospital not having the medical details of a patient who is being treated in another Irish hospital would never happen here; the entire public sector is paperless. Every government computer speaks to every other one, and to your own laptop. The result of this world-leading e-governance ecosystem is that Estonians can start a company online in minutes and 99 per cent of government services are accessible from home. No queues, no forms, no 'missing in the post' appointments, because one ID card has all the information in one place. Consequently the cost of government bureaucracy has collapsed. This is the future. And yet the region is still captured by the past, most notably the threat of Moscow. [ What does the latest ECB cut mean for borrowers, savers and the broader economy? Opens in new window ] Ireland has become home to a significant Baltic diaspora since the early 2000s, with people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania now making up roughly 1 per cent of the population (based on the 2022 census and a population of 5.15 million). These neighbours are not from some backward former Soviet region, but from one of the most dynamic parts of modern Europe, the Baltic Sea, home to Poland, Europe's most vibrant large economy, Finland and of course Sweden, as well as the industrial north of Germany. Ireland should learn to use the skills, networks and languages of our new residents to cement relations with this part of the world because this is rapidly becoming a cauldron of EU growth at a time when other parts of Europe are stagnating.
