A look at Ireland's relationship with alcohol and the health impacts that come with it.
Alcohol is present at every social event in Irish life today, but this is not necessarily a positive. The medical profession estimates that out of every hundred people drinking in a pub, five already are or will become alcoholics.
Excess consumption of alcohol over a prolonged period has a measurable detrimental effect on health. Dr Dermot Walsh explains, alcohol damages brain cells and the parts of the brain associated with thought, learning and action,
Your capacity to remember, to make reasoned judgements to make intellectual decisions becomes more and more impaired.
Heavy drinkers also are more likely to go on to develop cirrhosis of the liver, heart failure, esophageal and bowel cancer.
Given these disturbing medical facts, should we advertise and promote alcohol to the extent that we do?
The drinks industry is aware of the problems that its products can cause, says Kevin McCourt of Irish Distillers, and alcoholism is a problem in every country,
We...deplore the social adversities that occur from the abuse of drink.
With this in mind Irish Distillers subscribes to a voluntary code of good advertising practice which includes not advertising on television, or aiming their products directly at young people.
Advertisements for spirits, stout and beer are now part of daily life. Cinemas, newspapers and magazines as well as buses and billboards all of which are in the public sphere contain images often aimed at young people,
Sold an image of themselves as mature sophisticates drinking the hard stuff.
This episode of 'Report’ was broadcast on 16 January 1978. The reporter is Michael Ryan.
