We deserve better than delays to landmark health legislation
Even in the snakes and ladders that is politics, it's unusual to stop a piece of reform that you yourself created and championed.
Last week Simon Harris responded to a question in the Dáil saying that the government needs to 'give consideration to the timeline for the implementation' of health information labelling on alcohol products, due to the 'new trade environment' brought about by American tariffs.
This is the alcohol industry's dream outcome, one that delays, yet again, a key part of the country's Public Health Alcohol Act. First proposed in 2012, introduced to the Oireachtas in 2015, it took three years for the Public Health Alcohol Act to get through the Dáil, despite the powerful alcohol lobby's best efforts to stop it.
It was hailed upon its passage as groundbreaking legislation by Harris himself and strongly supported by the coalition leader Micheál Martin. Since 2018 measures have been slowly, painstakingly, introduced as part of the overall commitment to reduce the harm of alcohol.
The planned introduction of labelling to inform the public of the harms of alcohol is one measure due to be introduced in May 2026. And this is the key measure that the government is now saying that its timing 'merits consideration' under the convenient, but misleading guise, of Donald Trump's tariffs.
One thousand cancers caused by alcohol are diagnosed every year in this country. File photo: Patrick Bolger/Bloomberg
It is misleading because conflating Irish exports with labelling is one of the many tactics used by Ireland's alcohol lobby to do everything they can to stymie, water down and prevent the Public Health Alcohol Act.
American tariffs have nothing to do with labels on alcohol in this country because the labelling only applies to alcohol sold in Ireland. Unfortunately the industry can label any way they like if they are exporting, while some bottles for sale in Ireland are already labelled in preparation for the introduction of this aspect of the legislation, following detailed notification processes to the EU Commission and the World Trade Organisation.
The alcohol industry's classic tactics include never saying 'no', but always pressing and pressuring to delay. With each delay is the possibility that the measure won't actually happen, and the alcohol industry's profits will continue to be protected and to soar.
Big Alcohol
In 2023, the Institute of Alcohol Studies estimated that the revenue of the global alcohol industry was $1.17 trillion. That is higher than the GDP of 179 countries. To put it another way, there are only 16 countries in the world that have a higher GDP than the alcohol industry makes in revenue each year. Their influence on government is extremely powerful.
The economic environment is difficult at the moment, but what the Fine Gael position manages to forget is the reality that alcohol causes health, social and economic harms to us. We have the third highest rate of Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder in the world. One third of our children live with a parent who regularly drinks heavily or is dependent on alcohol.
One thousand cancers caused by alcohol are diagnosed every year in this country. We know that a reduction in alcohol consumption will directly lead to better health. 1,500 hospital beds are in use today because of alcohol and 30% of emergency department presentations arise from alcohol.
Fighting against these grim statistics was the driving vision of the legislation that every politician in the Dáil supported in 2018, with all but two TDs voting for it.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has legitimately garnered acclaim for his political leadership on public health; he introduced the workplace smoking ban in 2004 despite huge lobbying from Big Tobacco. Then we were world leaders on standing for the public in the face of industry tactics.
'Policy dystopia'
Big Alcohol uses a classic model called 'policy dystopia', basically creating alarming economic stories that spread in newspapers, through constituents in TD's local areas, commissioning research that agrees with its view, and meeting with ministers and policy makers.
The policy dystopia model is designed to scare politicians, to get them to buckle from their original commitments.
Yet Irish governments since the late 1970s have resisted huge pressure from Big Tobacco to stop warnings measures being put on cigarette packets. It was at the height of the financial crisis in 2011 that we put photographic health warnings on tobacco packs. Do we regret doing that?
The alcohol industry also knows that labelling is protective only over a longer time period. Cigarette labelling didn't have an immediate effect. If you were addicted or dependent on tobacco, you put more effort into ignoring the images.
But what happens with labelling is that it subtly but profoundly changes the minds of children. This is not about being pro-wine or anti-wine. It is about creating these subtle shifts in the environment, so that our children grow up seeing alcohol slightly differently to us.
'Hypocrite's trap'
The other thing the alcohol industry knows and uses against us is the 'hypocrite's trap'. If I drink alcohol I really cannot advocate for health labels on it. It makes me a hypocrite. The effect of this is that we self-censor, feeling we don't have the right to say this is wrong.
The alcohol industry's influence on us is extremely disempowering precisely for this reason.
Taoiseach Martin, ministers Harris and Carroll MacNeill and many of their seasoned political colleagues know too well the pressure they come under from big private sector interests. It is the minister for health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill who would sign an order delaying health labelling.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and Simon Harris and many of their seasoned political colleagues know too well the pressure they come under from big private sector interests. File photo: Fergal Phillips
Is the minister really going to allow her own department's policy to be derailed, or is she going to stand up for health given her remarks last week about pressure on Emergency Departments and hospital beds?
Politicians know what is needed to stand for the public good. Surely we deserve better.
Sara Burke is Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management in the School of Medicine
Norah Campbell is Associate Professor in the School of Business in Trinity College Dublin
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