A leading charity has called for the availability of cheap alcohol in the Republic to be restricted and the introduction of a price floor below which it can not be sold.
Alcohol Action Ireland, the national charity for alcohol-related issues, wants all political parties to commit to tackling what it describes as the detrimental impact of alcohol on children and young people by focusing on prices.
"Cheap alcohol, widely available and easily accessible, is fuelling a health and well-being crisis of which children and young people are the first casualties," the director of the charity Fiona Ryan said.
She called for the introduction of a floor price below which alcohol could not be sold and its availability and accessibility should be restricted. "Alcohol is a controlled substance and we act as if it's a grocery," she said. She described the current Government's alcohol policies as "disjointed".
Last week the British government announced measures aimed at restricting the sale of cut-price alcohol. Home Office minister James Brokenshire said they would stop "the worst instances of deep discounting", in which supermarkets and off-licences use cut-price deals as loss-leaders to boost other sales although lobby groups expressed concern that the government there has not gone far enough in combating discounting.
Efforts by the Scottish Executive to set minimum prices failed last year. In Northern Ireland, the social development minister Alex Attwood and health minister Michael McGimpsey are to launch a joint consultation about minimum price levels in the coming weeks.
"On the one hand, the Government states that alcohol-related harm is a serious public health issue, but on the other, almost every move it has made around pricing and regulation has been to maintain the widespread availability of alcohol at relatively cheap prices," Ms Ryan said. She pointed out that the 2010 budget reduced excise duty on alcohol while December's budget maintained the cut.
"The World Health Organisation states that price and availability of alcohol are the two key policy areas to tackle if Governments want to be effective in reducing alcohol-related harm," she said.
She added that there was an opportunity for an incoming government "to show leadership and protect the children of Ireland from the harms caused by alcohol and to take the steps necessary that we know from the World Health Organisation will reduce that harm."
A recent survey of drinking among European 15- and 16-year-olds showed that 44 per cent of Irish girls and 42 per cent of Irish boys reported binge-drinking in the last month and over half reported being drunk at least once by the age of 16.