Minimum alcohol pricing is nigh

So, seeing as it's a done deal and it's on the way in, and seeing as it's not technically a tax and suppliers/retailers are going to pocket the extra, should we not then put pressure on any off-licence to contribute the new profit directly towards health services. See if the people who sell the poison want to help those they got addicted to it, or just typical greedy cnuts who don't care about anything but the bottom line.

And from what someone said above, I'd 100% be behind a alcohol advertising ban similar to tobacco. Madness that alcohol companies sponsor major, family sporting events. We want to reduce the issues with drink, and it has had some success with tobacco (again, Google thinking I want certain articles instead of the terms I'm actually searching for, it's gone to the dogs!), but it seems like it was anyway.

The reason they're not going to do it via extra tax is that this was never a health measure - its a publican / old fashioned off-licence support scheme. Extra tax would have to be paid by publicans too.

Be a big rise in inflation in January so, a very bad time to bring this in. Unless they fiddle the figures so that the alcohol weighting in consumer price index is reduced, I wouldn't put it past them

The shops on the other side of the border will be doing a roaring trade. The idiots making the laws here don't seem to acknowledge it.

am i right in thinking that wine will be the least affected drink - if the MUP on a bottle of wine is 7.40, the majority wines are already above this level. To take supervalu as an example, most wines on sale currently start at about €8

€7.40 will be a rare MUP for red wine as few are 12.5%. That's more of a white wine percentage. The more normal 13.5% will be €8 under MUP.

It's possible I guess that stores may source more wine in the 11.5%/12% range just to have headline low prices?

Also I wouldn't take Spar prices as a reference base. There are plenty of perfectly serviceable wines in the €5 price slot in Aldi and Lidl, which will obviously have a sizeable increase.

Right, so your own personal main reason for not wanting this coming in is because of how badly it'll affect the alcoholics?

Will write apply the same theory across the board? No increase in the price of anything in case the addicts get worse?

https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/9ef45-the-healthy-ireland-survey-2021/

I think this minimum alcohol pricing will do nothing to influence alcohol consumption which as others have pointed out is already falling. It will just lead to some retailers with more money in their pocket and a slight government gain in VAT. It will lead to some consumers with less money in their pocket and effect those on lower incomes disproportionately. It has already failed to help addiction problems in Scotland with continued increases in drug related deaths most likely made worse with some of the figures due to increased numbers of people trying to get some sort of high off illegal substances because it is a bit more expensive to have a legally purchased drink.

I do like to occasionally have a few cans at home when watching football as I live too far from a pub to go there regularly and using the calculator for minimum pricing the beer can I currently like to drink from Lidl will go from 1.10euro per can to 1.98euro per can.

I liked the system I saw in Sweden which at one time had a severe problem with alcohol related deaths and they allowed sale in normal shops of any alcohol up to 3.5% strength but then had much more strictly regulated sales of anything stronger. I think they are acually after putting a bit of thought into their policy and tried to change the rules to protect people unlike the MUP policy here which alows govermnment appear like they are doing something about alcoholism while in reality they are just making some people on lower incomes poorer.