Minimum alcohol pricing is nigh

Its a nanny state tax nothing more, we were already the most expensive in europe for alcohol now its just crazy it doubled in price overnight and it does not work it failed in scotland and will fail here, but the greedy goverment will not do the right thing and reverse it as its a massive cash cow now same as gatso speed vans a money trap for them. They also made beer much weaker and killed the taste absolute disgrace also made the cans smaller some are now 440 ml they never existed here was always 500ml cans. jesus we are been seriously fleeced on this we should be marching on the streets

MUP has been discussed for over a decade.

This thread is over 6 years old.

But every now and then along comes a poster with a rant without having a clue what they are talking about.

My point is it's not a tax, like that poster is claiming.

It's not a "massive cash cow now same as gatso speed vans".

The only thing the government get from MUP is the VAT on the increased price of some alcohol.

And the speed vans are not a massive cash cow.

The post is just a typical stupid uninformed rant against government, any government that is common around here.

Nanny state tax that nobody is in favour of who wants to pay double for there beer and 4 times what it costs in other eu countries. Its a failure same as scotland thats a fact

Some care including yourself who drops in regularly to comment.

It is true that a lot of people think MUP is a tax.

The effect is similar to a tax in that the Government passed a law to take money out of drinkers pockets.

In my experience when you explain that the money actually goes to the drinks trade most people can't get their heads around it.

There were some on here predicting outrage,you are correct there.

I never did though,I thought it would play out pretty much as it has.Paddy (I include myself in this for clarity) takes it up the hole,whines about it,resents it and does nothing about it.

It's the modern Irish way,it can be applied to a lot more serious and sinister stuff happening in the country right now than MUP.

We have the cost of recycling the can/bottle to be added to it in the future as well. We cant be trusted to use our green bins for cans or bottle banks.

FFS

for the zillionth time it's not a tax, the retailers and producers get the money.

I don't care about MUP, I spend so little on alcohol it doesn't affect me.

I drop in here the odd time to have a laugh at the rants about it being a tax, or about it being North Korea, or the posts telling us to "just wait until such and such", or the plans being drawn up to boycott the VFI and LVI just to show them that we mean business etc etc.

I think people don't care about MUP because in real terms the price of alcohol is as low as it's ever been and as a society we are evolving our relationship with booze and the price of alcohol is not the weathervane it used to be.

Go into a pub (if you're not boycotting the VFI or LVI) and you might see an old framed picture of "The price of the pint" that charts the increased price of the pint over the decades.

But it stops around the mid 1990s, because that's around the same time we became prosperous and stopped worrying about the price of the pint.

Now I know that people will counter and say why the need for MUP if our relationship with alcohol is evolving, well that might be the case but alcohol is still a big problem here.

And as I've said before, I'm not a huge fan of MUP, I prefer more focus on advertising restrictions, need to stop the alcohol companies embedding there brands subconsciously in young developing brains.

I must say it's very generous of you to not mind making an involuntary contribution to the drinks industry every time you purchase what little you drink.

I can't find it in myself to be so generous. I resent every cent of the MUP levy that I pay.

It's bad idea to make people like you and me pay more for our few drinks because other people have a drink problem.

And it's totally off the wall to give that levy to the drinks trade.

Kill the drinks industry? We hear that every time the price goes up. And yet we, as a society, continue to buy it.

And that is exactly what they are counting on. People might groan and moan a bit but after a while, they will simply accept the price for the product they want.

There might be some loss of trade to NI, but the gain in margins for the retailers and the gain in profits for the producers will probably more than compensate. It knocks price competition out of the water. So saves all that admin and advertising money that was needed every year just to stand still. The final bonus is that competition itself is stopped. No point in trying the new product if it's the same price as your previous favourite.

Its a win-win for everyone. The government get to claim they are doing something to deal with the problem of drinkers when everyone can see it really isn't. The Vintners are happy, the retailers are happy, and the producers are happy. The only people to lose out is the consumer, but we have shown time and time again that we will continue to buy drinks pretty much no matter what.

It didnt seem that long ago since Guinness said that they wouldnt be increasing their costs after the Heineken hike.

Why did it? I've never seen a scumbag ever buy a slab, they always bought 8 or 10 cans as they couldn't do basic primary school maths on any offers. No alcoholic was buying a crate at a time either. These pat on the back FFG pricks on €100k a year sleep well tonight once the tens of millions of NIRL spend is never revealed.