Diarmaid Ferriter: Our ambivalent attitude to drink has been apparent since foundation of State

The unveiling this week of the proposed heads of the new Public Health (Alcohol) Bill marked the inauguration of a new phase of analysis and comment on Irish alcohol use and misuse.

Much was made of the novel identification by legislators of alcohol abuse as a public health issue as opposed to simply a licensing issue. Historically, this health dimension of the alcohol problem has been the preserve of public health reformers and moral crusaders who have been vocal in linking alcohol abuse to a variety of tragedies, including lost childhoods and mental and physical decline. Reports from the Dublin branch of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in the early 20th century, for example, identified excessive drinking as the chief cause of child neglect.

But there was such a variety of vested interests associated with the alcohol industry that cynicism existed about the extent to which politicians would be prepared to enact legislation or help foster a climate that would reduce consumption once political independence was achieved.

The main focus of legislators from the foundation of this State was on licensing, or what minister for home affairs (later Justice) Kevin O’Higgins, referred to in 1923 as the need for “a genuine licensing code, not a bewildering maze of statutes and decisions, which, while creating offences also provided ingenious means of escape for unscrupulous people and for people otherwise honest but who were driven to lie and worse in the struggle for existence.”

Licensing maze

For the government, such sentiments indicated the need to negotiate a middle path through the licensing maze, but it also underlined a tacit acceptance that any restrictive legislation would arouse the ire of the powerful licensed trade. In a Department of Home Affairs memorandum, also in 1923, it was accepted that “they are now vested and not to be disturbed”.

O’Higgins was careful in the language he used, insisting that he was not hostile to the licensed trade or prepared to indulge prohibitionists. He pushed through intoxicating liquor acts to tighten up some of the anomalies and malpractices identified, but was also deliberately vague in addressing the question of whether Ireland was a nation of drunks.

Speaking in the Dáil in 1927 he said: “That of course is a question of angles. What is excessive drinking? I do not take it that excessive drinking means that you fall over a man every five yards on your way home. If we are drinking beyond our resources there is excessive drinking. £17.5 million was spent across the counter on drink in the financial year 1925-6. Is that excessive drinking? Some people would say no. Some people would say very differently. At any rate I object to the criterion that drunkenness and drunkenness alone is to be the test of whether or not there is excessive drinking.”

Thirty years later, the Intoxicating Liquor Commission formed the basis for the Intoxicating Liquor Act, 1959 that sought to liberalise the Irish licensing laws. There was opposition to the Act, both because of the licensing changes and because it asserted that alcohol abuse was no longer a problem in Irish society.

But then taoiseach Seán Lemass, in rejecting the requests of those who were looking for a free vote in the Dáil on grounds of conscience, was able to cleverly square the circles of criticism by saying: “Drunkenness is a sin for which men are responsible to a higher court than ours.”

Deep ambivalence

Nearly 40 years later, the Department of Health’s national alcohol policy statement in 1996 said: “There is evidence that the description of the Irish as a particularly alcohol-prone race is a myth. Indeed it is doubtful whether Ireland ever occupied a prominent role with regard to alcohol use or misuse.”

This assertion, like so many associated with the Irish and alcohol, was erroneous and was indicative of the deep ambivalence at the heart of the Irish relationship with alcohol. At that time, Ireland was estimated to have the highest percentage of teetotallers in Europe, but what was notable in relation to those who drank was the high threshold that, for them, qualified as excess.

Vested interests

Waves of publicity over the problems of alcohol abuse have washed over since, as have promises of measures to tackle abuse. What is being proposed in the new Bill, particularly in relation to minimum unit pricing, looks substantial and concrete. If implemented, it will involve a disturbance of the vested interests commented on by government as far back as 1923, but there is clearly still ambivalence, which is reflected in the refusal to countenance breaking the link between alcohol and sports advertising.

Another indication of the ongoing ambivalence was also apparent this week, with the announcement of a campaign headed by Fergus Finlay of Barnardos, with the entirely laudable aim of tackling “out of control drinking”.

There is a catch, however. The initiative is to be funded by drinks giant Diageo. This surely is an Irish solution to an Irish problem.