Minimum alcohol pricing is nigh

Because it was never actually about helping addicts it was always about getting average punters back into pubs

Lidl own brand vodka was €13 for 700ml before MUP.

I don't know the current price (or if they even sell it now).

The big brand spirits may not have increased in price much, but addicts just want the cheapest.

I think they meant branded spirits, which are now the same price and sometimes cheaper than the own brand stuff.

I think it was 16 euros before MUP.

I have noticed that branded spirits are on offer more often than pre MUP meaning that they are frequently the same price, or only slightly dearer than shop brands.

I'm a loyal Tesco user and have a clubcard. Anyone who uses tesco regularly, particularly online(because the prices are more visible) will tell you, practically every price in Tesco has 2 prices, the clubcard price and the non-clubcard price. The clubcard price is not really a discount, it's really that the non-clubcard price is an artificially increased price. The reason for it seems to be to encourage you to get a clubcard.

The example I gave over in the Pat Kenny thread is:

I have done some googling, and €32.50 for Jameson is more expensive than most other sellers of Jameson in Ireland. The exception being Spar, but we all know their prices are artificially increased anyway! This is what tells me it is an artificial price.

So I really want to discourage people from using the phrase discount. It's not a discounted price, it's that the non-clubcard price is an inflated price.

I would be willing to bet that if legislation is amended so that Jameson and other alcohol was forced to be exempt from a the clubcard price, the standard price would soon drop to a permanent price of around 24/25.

Theres a lad who sits outside my local Tesco with his paper cup. I was beside him at the self service one evening and he asked me for my clubcard to get his discount. He was buying a bottle of vodka and a bottle of coke. I've since seen him sitting outside with his paper cup and topping up the bottle coke with vodka, he makes no secret of it. Lads like him would have no interest in having a bottle of wine or beer. They need the hard stuff to get a hit so MUP has no effect on them.

Some woman from Alcohol Action on Drivetime claimed that alcohol prices in supermarkets have not increased in the last 20 years... A

That's selectively chosing specific dates in time to fit your agenda. Yes at one stage alcohol was expensive here but then the price dropped alot due to the big increase in competition especially from the German discounters, they were probably dumbfounded at the price of beer here compared to Germany so this was the area they concentrated on, remember those cheap continental beerss they brought in which broke the big cartels in Irish alcohol

She made sure not to select dates in between by saying alcohol is the same price as it was 15 or 10 years ago as that would be blatantly lying. All we had for the last decade or so especially was alcohol prices approaching our European peers but AA Ireland have moved back in to control our lives again

If someone is a problem drinker the price is unlikely to be an inhibiter. Smokers still buy tobacco even though the price goes up most years due to the budget. So this whole MUP is codswallop. Adults should be allowed to make adult choices but equally suffer the consequences. Enough of the nanny state nonsense.

Let pubs open 24/7. Educate the people to drink as an accompaniment to food and not with the aim of getting blotto in of itself. For that to happen on a mass level will require the government to lower the cost of being in business to help restaurants to lower drink and food prices to the punter. If for example the government lower the cost of being in business by 10% then prices will be required to reduce by that percent too or any cost reductions are reversed.

As far as I'm aware we have a law forbidding a pub from serving a drunk person yet it is easily by passed and most likely not enforced anyway.

That's what I don't understand about this proposal, what exactly is it supposed to achieve or tackle?

The only thing it will achieve is, well, to Jennifer Double-Barrel's supporters it will show she is doing something. Not dissimilar to Helen McEntees wander down Capel Street surrounded by 5 Gardai and then announcing Dublin is safe!

Discounts on alcohol have been illegal for some time now. This is not closing any loophole.