Over half of the population has experienced harm due to strangers’ drinking in the past twelve months; two in every five suffered due to the drinking of people they know – and one in seven reported work-related problems because of co-workers’ drinking.
Those are among the key findings of a survey carried out by a Galway-born health expert who has blamed the end of the ban on below-cost selling of alcohol for an upsurge in the culture of harmful drinking.
Baile na hAbhann native, Dr Ann Hope, also found that three in every five adults reported having a heavy drinker in their life.
She revealed her findings in the “The Untold Story: Harms Experienced in the Irish Population due to Others’ Drinking” – tallying with results of the Galway City Alcohol Survey, carried out two years ago.
Dr Hope, from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care in Trinity College Dublin, said publicans were ‘crucified’ a decade ago by allowing the sale of alcohol in supermarkets at a lower price than it costs to make it.
But the lifting of that ban on below-cost selling in 2006 has only served to fuel the drink culture – with appalling consequences.
“We’ve seen incidents where somebody doesn’t like the look of you because they’ve too much drink taken and they hit you. We’ve seen that in Eyre Square and other parts of Galway,” she said.
“There were some tragic cases in Galway – absolutely horrendous cases – where students lost their teeth, suffered broken jaws, from total strangers.”
See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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