Binge drinking among young people in Ireland is now reaching epidemic proportions and is creating huge problems for the health service, a conference on alcoholism was told today in Galway today.
Medical experts, told the conference organised by the Western Health Board that alcohol consumption has increased by 50% per capita over the past 12 years and is now costing the country €2.3 billion per annum.
One of the country's leading specialists in alcohol treatment, Dr John Sheehan of the Mater Hospital in Dublin, told the conference surveys show that one third of all men admitted to medical and surgical wards now have alcohol related problems.
He said casualty units at the Mater, which had been featured in a recent RTE Prime Time programme, still continued to be strewn with the bodies of drunken people every night.
Joe Treacy, an alcohol councillor with the Western Health Board, warned that binge drinking among young people had reached epidemic proportions and they were now treating young people whose lives were being destroyed by drink.
Many were starting to drink at 13 and were addicts needing major health care by the age of 21.
