175% of the EU average

darkpagandeath

http://www.rte.ie/news/business/2016/0615/795880-eurostat-ireland/

Ireland is the most expensive country in the European Union in which to buy alcohol with prices at 175% of the EU average, according to new data from Eurostat.

Yet we are still pushing ahead against a EC ruling on Min alcohol price as apparently we have cheap alcohol. I remember Leo on the news banging on about being able to buy below cost Alcohol min's from the Dail

Sh1tbag OToole

We're a low tax country, we need to pay for property tax, water charges, USC. Blah blah blah

genericguy

You'd swear alcohol was a vital nutrient for survival the way people go on. ****ing dopes in this country. It's expensive because you can be relied upon to pay what is asked for.

seamus

Yes, it's moronic.

Minimum pricing, strict closing hours, bar closing times, etc are all just smaller types of prohibition. Which we know from the experience of the U.S. actually encourages people to drink more.

By making alcohol a dirty little secret that you only drink in pubs and only at set times, you encourage people to consider it a special treat and consequently binge on it.

We should be massively liberalising alcohol sales. Allow any shop to sell it any time of the day or night. Allow pubs to stay open whenever they want, subject to planning regulations. We're all fairly simple idiots at heart. If you tell us something is bad for us, it makes us want it more. If you tell us we can't have it, we'll do our damnedest to prove you wrong.

Like having an open bar, there would be a few months of adjustment as people go mad. But like anyone who's been to an open bar more than once or twice; it gets old very quickly. We'd cop onto ourselves and probably end up drinking less overall as a result.

darkpagandeath

genericguy wrote: »

You'd swear alcohol was a vital nutrient for survival the way people go on. ****ing dopes in this country. It's expensive because you can be relied upon to pay what is asked for.

Nah, I don't like being ripped off to the tune of 175% by publicans in the Dail and their relatives in the industry for no good reason.

Junkyard Tom

It's not a drug, it's a drink.

cml387

Another pointless statistic.

Did you know that the vast majority of people have an above average number of legs?

kneemos

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

It's not a drug, it's a drink.

Exactly.Drugs come in tablet form.

PMBC

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Nah, I don't like being ripped off to the tune of 175% by publicans in the Dail and their relatives in the industry for no good reason.

Perhaps that's the problem or part of it - too many publicans in the Dail, or too many TDs connected to that business. The problem is further compounded by the money sunk into pubs over the years. It was fairly simple to make money; pubs like lots of businesses were valued on their annual turnover/profit so pub/licence prices went up. So if they suddenly become much less profitable with de-regulation of alcohol sales,, as they have in rural Ireland with the driving and smoking bans, a lot of money stands to be lost. It would only be natural to expect publican sto strongly resist that.

darkpagandeath

PMBC wrote: »

Perhaps that's the problem or part of it - too many publicans in the Dail, or too many TDs connected to that business. The problem is further compounded by the money sunk into pubs over the years. It was fairly simple to make money; pubs like lots of businesses were valued on their annual turnover/profit so pub/licence prices went up. So if they suddenly become much less profitable with de-regulation of alcohol sales,, as they have in rural Ireland with the driving and smoking bans, a lot of money stands to be lost. It would only be natural to expect publican sto strongly resist that.

Like any business in the free market there should be no interference under something something health grounds. Price increase on already most expensive in EU. There are clearly to many pubs for the amount of business.

DIGI Secretary Dónall O'Keeffe said: “Excise is a tax on jobs, it is a tax on tourism and it is a tax on Irish consumers.

Well Dónall, I raise you the economic cost of drunk-driving car crashes, death, life-long injuries, alcohol-related illnesses taking hospital beds galore, alcohol-related A&E overflow, family destruction & child destruction from alcohol abuse, much violent crime at nighttime, drink-related sexual assaults, workplace absences...


And for this self-serving nonsense, I give this: The Effects of Price on Alcohol Use, Abuse, and Their Consequences, especially this 'This research, using a variety of different data and empirical approaches, generally has found that increases in the prices for alcoholic beverages lead to reductions in drinking, heavy drinking, and the consequences of alcohol use and abuse.

These findings confirm perhaps the most fundamental law of economics—that of the downward-sloping demand curve. This law states that as the price of a product rises, the quantity demanded of that product falls. Given this law, policies that raise the prices of alcoholic beverages can be effective in reducing the health, economic, and social consequences resulting from alcohol use and abuse.'



I wish Irish people, even the most obtuse among us, could stop being dicks about the damage alcohol abuse does in this country. I genuinely don't care if aforesaid "lads" drink themselves into oblivion on the path to coolness. Go for it. Our public health system will take the burden when you come crawling for help.

I do care when alcohol is romanticised across this society from the incessant ads to taoisigh having "pints" (so "Irish") with foreign dignitaries to an 18th-century English drink being promoted as the symbol of Ireland to the very concept of "craic" being linked to drunkeness. A national identity has been allowed to flourish around this destructive cesspool, and nobody but medical experts are shouting stop. It starts with romanticisation, and leads quickly to acceptance and legitimisation of the entire culture of alcohol abuse.

I care about the many kids I have to deal with who come from families ripped to pieces as a consequence of what is far and away the most destructive addiction in Irish society. It's the denial of all the areas of society that are devastated by this evil - for it really is an evil - that irks me. From underperforming workplaces to parent-teacher meetings to child and spouse counselling to court houses to A&Es to morgues - alcohol abuse fúcks this society up in so many fundamental ways, economically and socially.

We need an Irish government with balls to follow through on the advice of medical experts like Joe Barry of TCD, Frank Murray of CPI and so many others. Do the right thing and to hell with the drinks lobby in all its guises from Dónall above to publicans to media organisations which will lose millions because of a ban on alcohol promotion. Follow the advice of medical experts. That is all.

Wonzy

Be grand like, a few cans

SEPT 23 1989

You can get two flagons of cider for a tenner

It's cheap enough

darkpagandeath

Deleted User wrote: »

Well Dónall, I raise you the economic cost of drunk-driving car crashes, death, life-long injuries, alcohol-related illnesses taking hospital beds galore, alcohol-related A&E overflow, family destruction & child destruction from alcohol abuse, much violent crime at nighttime, drink-related sexual assaults, workplace absences...


And for this self-serving nonsense, I give this: The Effects of Price on Alcohol Use, Abuse, and Their Consequences, especially this 'This research, using a variety of different data and empirical approaches, generally has found that increases in the prices for alcoholic beverages lead to reductions in drinking, heavy drinking, and the consequences of alcohol use and abuse.

These findings confirm perhaps the most fundamental law of economics—that of the downward-sloping demand curve. This law states that as the price of a product rises, the quantity demanded of that product falls. Given this law, policies that raise the prices of alcoholic beverages can be effective in reducing the health, economic, and social consequences resulting from alcohol use and abuse.'



I wish Irish people, even the most obtuse among us, could stop being dicks about the damage alcohol abuse does in this country. I genuinely don't care if aforesaid "lads" drink themselves into oblivion on the path to coolness. Go for it. Our public health system will take the burden when you come crawling for help.

I do care when alcohol is romanticised across this society from the incessant ads to taoisigh having "pints" (so "Irish") with foreign dignitaries to an 18th-century English drink being promoted as the symbol of Ireland to the very concept of "craic" being linked to drunkeness. A national identity has been allowed to flourish around this destructive cesspool, and nobody but medical experts are shouting stop. It starts with romanticisation, and leads quickly to acceptance and legitimisation of the entire culture of alcohol abuse.

I care about the many kids I have to deal with who come from families ripped to pieces as a consequence of what is far and away the most destructive addiction in Irish society. It's the denial of all the areas of society that are devastated by this evil - for it really is an evil - that irks me. From underperforming workplaces to parent-teacher meetings to child and spouse counselling to court houses to A&Es to morgues - alcohol abuse fúcks this society up in so many fundamental ways, economically and socially.

We need an Irish government with balls to follow through on the advice of medical experts like Joe Barry of TCD, Frank Murray of CPI and so many others. Do the right thing and to hell with the drinks lobby in all its guises from Dónall above to publicans to media organisations which will lose millions because of a ban on alcohol promotion. Follow the advice of medical experts. That is all.

Tripe. All falls down as we are middle in consumption in the EU have the highest price and no more alchos than anywhere else.

darkpagandeath

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Tripe. All falls down as we are middle in consumption in the EU have the highest price and no more alchos than anywhere else.

No, it doesn't. Alcohol in the western world generally is far more affordable today than it was 20, 30 or 40 years ago and the problem of alcoholism is correspondingly greater. That is the relevant relative comparison.

See, for instance: Our booze is too cheap and it’s literally killing us.

From which I quote: "Consider this: being a really heavy drinker -- a 10-drink-a-day drinker -- cost about 45 percent of the average person's disposable income in 1950. In 2011, you could buy those same 10 daily drinks using only 3 percent of the average disposable income, according to a 2013 analysis published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine. "Alcoholic beverages sold for off-premises consumption are more affordable today than at any time in the past 60 years," the study concludes."

Wonzy

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

You can get two flagons of cider for a tenner

It's cheap enough

Bottle of buckie as well in some places.

darkpagandeath

Deleted User wrote: »

No, it doesn't. Alcohol in the western world generally is far more affordable today than it was 20, 30 or 40 years ago and the problem of alcoholism is correspondingly greater. That is the relevant relative comparison.

See, for instance: Our booze is too cheap and it’s literally killing us.

From which I quote: "Consider this: being a really heavy drinker -- a 10-drink-a-day drinker -- cost about 45 percent of the average person's disposable income in 1950. In 2011, you could buy those same 10 daily drinks using only 3 percent of the average disposable income, according to a 2013 analysis published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine. "Alcoholic beverages sold for off-premises consumption are more affordable today than at any time in the past 60 years," the study concludes."

I don't live in the USA. And they have a great history do they on booze. Produce some European stats pref from Eurostat please. Or stop with the agenda.

Geuze

Just to note that I'm fairly sure these stats refer to off-licence and supermarket sales of alcohol, not pub/restaurant/hotel sales.

That would be a different Eurostat category.

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Comparative_price_levels_for_food,_beverages_and_tobacco

rubadub

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

You can get two flagons of cider for a tenner

It's cheap enough

how much apple juice is in those ciders though?

This guy in the UK was reporting cider as low as 7% juice.

Bulmers is said to be around 30% or so, though they will not reveal it. Their borderline illegal ads made out bulmers pear to be 100% juice but its not, it meant the juice used is 100% pear, i.e. there is no apple juice or other juices in it. Its the same as chicken nuggets saying they are made with 100% breast meat, but might only have 25% chicken overall.

http://www.cider.org.uk/juicecontent.htm

Stonewell is a widely available Irish cider which many would think worthy of calling a genuine cider. But it goes for 4.20 a bottle in an off licence.

https://www.obrienswine.ie/stonewell-dry-cider-50cl-bottle.html

beach_walker

Point of order: Alcohol consumption in Ireland has been falling continuously since a high in 2001. But please, carry on.

babaracus

Deleted User wrote: »

So, let's try this EU-wide, EU-commissioned study:

[the latter part being an almost mirror reflection in the EU of what has happened in the US, as linked in my previous post: alcohol spend is a far lower percentage of income today, alcohol price has not risen proportionately and has even reduced throughout the years]

Source: Lila Rabinovich et al, The affordability of alcoholic beverages in the European Union Understanding the link between alcohol affordability, consumption and harms (EU, 2009), pp. xiv-xv

And this Ireland-specific study:



Source: Health Research Board: Social consequences of harmful use of alcohol in Ireland, p. 12

Now, as regards "agendas" perhaps you could stop being a mouthpiece for the alcohol industry and repeating their propaganda. You could, for instance, have had the honesty to quote that Eurostat page in full: "According to Eurostat figures out today, Ireland is the fourth most expensive country in the EU for food and non-alcoholic beverages and the most expensive country for alcohol.

Separate Eurostat figures, also out today, show that Ireland had the second highest per capita GDP in the EU in 2015."

So, in other words, Ireland has the second-highest income per capita but only the fourth highest alcohol prices - another clear win for the alcohol industry. Time to raise alcohol prices to be at least the second highest in the EU.

Good to see prices falling in relative terms.

Maybe instead of collectively punishing the population and attempting to mother them to death you could just leave us alone? Mind your own business?

Proper punishments for those who cause anti social behaviour due to alcohol. Proper policing.Proper charges for those who infest A&Es with drink related injuries.

No, you want collective punishment. Go away and mother somebody else and leave me alone.

LDN_Irish

[Deleted User] wrote: »

You could, for instance, have had the honesty to quote that Eurostat page in full: "According to Eurostat figures out today, Ireland is the fourth most expensive country in the EU for food and non-alcoholic beverages and the most expensive country for alcohol.

Separate Eurostat figures, also out today, show that Ireland had the second highest per capita GDP in the EU in 2015."

So, in other words, Ireland has the second-highest income per capita but only the fourth highest alcohol prices - another clear win for the alcohol industry. Time to raise alcohol prices to be at least the second highest in the EU.

Am I missing something here? The part you've quoted says we have the 4th highest non-alcoholic drink prices but the most expensive alcohol in the EU.

Rezident

seamus wrote: »

Yes, it's moronic.

Minimum pricing, strict closing hours, bar closing times, etc are all just smaller types of prohibition. Which we know from the experience of the U.S. actually encourages people to drink more.

By making alcohol a dirty little secret that you only drink in pubs and only at set times, you encourage people to consider it a special treat and consequently binge on it.

We should be massively liberalising alcohol sales. Allow any shop to sell it any time of the day or night. Allow pubs to stay open whenever they want, subject to planning regulations. We're all fairly simple idiots at heart. If you tell us something is bad for us, it makes us want it more. If you tell us we can't have it, we'll do our damnedest to prove you wrong.

Like having an open bar, there would be a few months of adjustment as people go mad. But like anyone who's been to an open bar more than once or twice; it gets old very quickly. We'd cop onto ourselves and probably end up drinking less overall as a result.

Totally agree. Just back form Belgium where they can drink 10% beer til 11am if they want, but after a few days of it - guess what? Event the Irish were sick of it. Will we go to the bar across the road at 5:15am just because it's open? No actually I'd rather go home to bed (ok we did go the first night and the second night but after that the novelty had worn off).

Geuze

Deleted User wrote: »

Separate Eurostat figures, also out today, show that Ireland had the second highest per capita GDP in the EU in 2015."

So, in other words, Ireland has the second-highest income per capita but only the fourth highest alcohol prices - another clear win for the alcohol industry. Time to raise alcohol prices to be at least the second highest in the EU.

Please note that GDP per capita is not a good reflection of living standards in Ireland.

The same report from Eurostat indicates that our AIC per capita is 95% of the EU average.

AIC is a better measure of living standards.

SeanW

Deleted User wrote: »

Now, as regards "agendas" perhaps you could stop being a mouthpiece for the alcohol industry and repeating their propaganda. You could, for instance, have had the honesty to quote that Eurostat page in full: "According to Eurostat figures out today, Ireland is the fourth most expensive country in the EU for food and non-alcoholic beverages and the most expensive country for alcohol.

Separate Eurostat figures, also out today, show that Ireland had the second highest per capita GDP in the EU in 2015."

So, in other words, Ireland has the second-highest income per capita but only the fourth highest alcohol prices - another clear win for the alcohol industry. Time to raise alcohol prices to be at least the second highest in the EU.

Did you even bother to read the stuff you posted?

Because your wall of text clearly said:

1. Ireland has the 4th highest food and NON ALCOHOLIC beverage costs.
2. Ireland has the highest alcohol costs.
3. That means we are already beyond the "second highest in the EU."
4. That means your theory that higher alcohol prices reduce alcohol related harm, is bunkum.
5. Prohibitionists said the same thing about banning alcohol in the early 1900s, that restricting/banning it would reduce the level of harm caused. History clearly records otherwise.

gordongekko

I don't care how much it costs so long as it doesn't go scarce.

ohnonotgmail

Rezident wrote: »

Totally agree. Just back form Belgium where they can drink 10% beer til 11am if they want, but after a few days of it - guess what? Event the Irish were sick of it. Will we go to the bar across the road at 5:15am just because it's open? No actually I'd rather go home to bed (ok we did go the first night and the second night but after that the novelty had worn off).

they must have been a bunch of lightweights.

Since 24 hour opening hours came in in England the rate of drinking among young adults has fallen by over a 1/4. People just go to the one place, stay til 12/1 then leave. Nightclubs are closing everywhere. Before it was pub til 10.30/11, too early to go home, hit a club open til 3-4, sure we pain in may as well stay til closing etc.

It's not the only element which has contributed to their fall in drinking levels but it goes hand-in-hand with the rest of the factors.

Badly Drunk Boy

Wonzy wrote: »

Bottle of buckie as well in some places.

For a tenner? I think you must be injecting the stuff if you think it's still that cheap!

Alun

cml387 wrote: »

Another pointless statistic.

Did you know that the vast majority of people have an above average number of legs?

Agreed. It's as bad as all those ridiculous "league tables" where everybody thinks their country should be at the top without actually looking at the absolute values of whatever it is they're measuring, or what the shape of the distribution is.

Godge

babaracus wrote: »

Good to see prices falling in relative terms.

Maybe instead of collectively punishing the population and attempting to mother them to death you could just leave us alone? Mind your own business?

Proper punishments for those who cause anti social behaviour due to alcohol. Proper policing.Proper charges for those who infest A&Es with drink related injuries.

No, you want collective punishment. Go away and mother somebody else and leave me alone.

Alcohol consumption imposes a huge cost on society.

gordongekko

Godge wrote: »

Alcohol consumption imposes a huge cost on society.

Yeah sure the thread title says our society is paying 175% of the EU average.

Geuze

Godge wrote: »

Alcohol consumption imposes a huge cost on society.

It does.

And the high rates of excise duty paid goes some way, or maybe all the way, to cover those costs.