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ALCOHOL COMPANIES’ SUPPORT for responsible drinking campaigns is little more than a “clever exercise in corporate branding”, one advertising expert has claimed.
Dublin Institute of Technology’s Dr Patrick Kenny said recent moves by the industry to join the public-health fight were “possible to interpret … as a genuine attempt to tackle Ireland’s problematic drinking culture”.
But he said it was also possible alcohol companies had learned the lesson of Big Tobacco’s “defensive and reactive stance” when that industry was put under scrutiny, a period which ended in tight regulation.
(The alcohol industry) has adopted a more proactive stance, especially whenever new statutory regulations are on the horizon.”
Kenny was speaking at an Oireachtas Health Committee meeting examining the government’s proposed new alcohol regulations.
New rules, new anti-drinking campaign
The draft rules, first unveiled in early February, include a minimum unit pricing for alcohol, warning labels on products and a watershed rule for alcohol advertising in broadcast media.
However the restrictions stopped short of answering calls to ban alcohol companies from sponsoring sporting events after sporting bodies warned their futures would be under threat with the loss of funding.
A Diageo-backed “Stop Out-Of-Control Drinking” group has since been assembled with the stated aim of making problem drinking unacceptable.
However two of its board members have already stood down, although the group has said the brewer, which owns Guinness among other brands, only provided the funding for the campaign and had no control over its decisions.
Kenny said previous proposals to control alcohol marketing were shelved after the alcohol industry agreed a new code of practice and now a “new, high-profile campaign” had been launched while the latest restrictions were being considered.
Perhaps the timing of all of these initiatives is coincidental. But an alternative explanation is also possible, namely that they are timed and designed to placate policy makers and to brand the alcohol industry as responsible stakeholders who should not be too tightly regulated.”
‘Fundamental flaw’
Fianna Fáil health spokesman Billy Kelleher said it was a “fundamental flaw” of the new rules that no-one had “bit the bullet” on alcohol advertising in sport as it was aimed at a primarily young audience.
There is no doubt that the target audience isn’t a 75-year-old man drinking two pints of Murphys in a pub in Cork … it’s the younger audience that has been the target the whole time for alcohol companies,” he said.
Kelleher said he was also “very concerned” that alcohol producers backing anti-drinking campaigns would send the wrong signals the companies were “doing it for society’s good” – rather than trying to ward off tighter regulations.
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Just back from Italy where wine in a 1L Tetra Pack was €1.18 and I didn’t see anyone go apeshite on drink.
Cheaper to tax everyone into oblivion while failing to punish bad behaviour.
Drunk and disorderly is almost a right in Ireland…Unfortunately!
Where in Italy were you? To be totally fair the comparison is flawed whilst I admit you may have not seen alcohol issues. But look at the stats alcohol or binge consumption in the young is a Europe wide people. Its not limited to Ireland whatsoever and Ireland consumption rates have fallen year on year for the last six years. The statistics back this up rather than all this nonsense the government is peddling about minimum Alcohol pricing which is quite frankly a lobbyists cry. FG main lobbyists…. We know who they are.
Venice. I don’t really care if people get pissed or how pissed they get as long as it doesn’t affect me.
Think the cops in Venice would allow what goes on in Dublin of a weekend?
You have hit the nail on the head, no police force anywhere in any European city, and I`ve visted a lot of them would permit the public drunken disorder that is taken for granted here.
The drinks companies got their way with this watered down legislation, the most thing they feared was a ban on sports sponsorship and the govt caved in as everyone they would when faced with a powerful vested interest.
Bet they don’t recommend that politicians cease to enjoy the benefits of a bar at work…………Or that publicans have a responsibility to refuse to serve customers who are drunk instead of continually serving customers alcohol as witnessed by me last Sunday afternoon. Guy could hardly stand yet he was still served and I am not referring to some teenager or 20somthing year old. This guy was in his 30s with mates spouses children and was incapable of standing never mind sitting on his stool without falling back….So when any new rules do come in lets hope responsibilities do not stop at minimum pricing but make publicans responsible for their actions
The Dail bar is a farce, but in all honesty, getting rid of it would be nothing more than ceremonial. There are dozens of bars and pubs within 5mins of Leinster House, so the same folk would still get pissed before and after debates.
Or dare i say it make drinkers responsible for their actions!
Publicans are glorified drug dealers.
Hate all the alcohol advertising during the rugby… As if paul o connell sups guinness??
3 resignations now. St. Patricks gone now but Barnardos, DCU, Parents Council still hanging in. Details http://www.irishdrinklink.com
People are looking for tighter regulation on alcohol while a lot of countries are changing their laws towards cannabis.will cannabis be the new drug of choice when alcohol gets to heavily regulated?
Medicinal cannabis needs to legalised. Please don’t mix up recreational use and medical use as it muddies the water and defuses the argument. People really benefit from it.
Joe I’m not.states in the US have Alaska,district of Colombia, Washington ,Oregon,Colorado have decriminalised cannabis.the country of Uruguay has aswell
Will Billy Kelleher say that FF will ban alcohol sponsorship of sport immediately ?
All you have to do is look at the links most of our TD’s have with the industry. Family members in the pub industry else they have shares in the Diageo etc.
have your say