Irish government trying to cancel Christmas
The Irish Government are trying to cancel Christmas. At least that’s what you think if you listened to Big Alcohol.
Big Alcohol have produced a very expensive looking video showing the impact of the long awaited public health bill on that iconic Guinness Christmas ad. You can see it here
Cancel Christmas, we can’t advertise Guinness the way we want
Big Alcohol see the proposed law (called a bill as it goes through our parliament) as an attack on their ability to associate Christmas with drink.
So the new ad looks all sad and mournful and would not entice you to drink Guinness. So cancel Christmas. You can’t have Christmas without Guinness say Big Alcohol.
Duh, that’s the point
That’s exactly the point. Advertising encourages people to drink more and creates these wonderful fictitious stories and beliefs about alcohol as we’ve explained here. That’s why it can be so difficult for people to drink less.
We need this new law to stop adults and young children being targeted by drink companies. ( Click here for details on how Big Alcohol targets children )
As Alcohol action Ireland say about the new law.
Big alcohol are trying to stop this bill
We’ve written before about the tactics Big Alcohol are using to stop this bill becoming a reality. (Click here)
The government are due to bring the bill back before the Seanad next week. So Big Alcohol are now really ramping up the pressure on our politicians.
In the period May to August alone, 8 different groups phoned, met or presented to many TDs, Senators, Civil Servants and Ministers giving misleading facts about the bill. You can check their lobbying efforts here.
This lobbying is having an effect. As you can see below some TDs have already decided to put profit before people’s health.
The sky’s falling in, cancel Christmas
The message Big Alcohol are giving is if this bill is passed it will ruin the advertising industry, jobs will be lost, tourists won’t come, and the government will lose taxes.
In short, the sky will fall in. Cancel Christmas if this bill passed. All because a small minority of people abuse alcohol.
Will the sky fall in?
Although we’ll lose some excise duties and possibly jobs in the brewing industry this will be more than offset by the reduction in the cost of alcohol harm. Currently this runs over €1 billion per year to us the tax payers. Click here for details
It may be difficult for people in Big Alcohol initially but this change is not going to happen overnight. People working in the brewing industry are very skilled and in an economy reaching full employment, these people will be able to get jobs elsewhere . Click here for details Or they can concentrate on selling non alcoholic drinks.
Also the Vintners Federation is in favour of the bill as they see more people returning to their pubs if selling alcohol below cost is banned.
Tourists don’t come here for the drink
Oh and tourists don’t list drink and pubs in their top 7 reasons for coming to Ireland. (Click here for details)
Also those wonderful creative minds in the advertising industry can still create ads for alcohol but in a different way.
And finally, this bill is not required because of a small minority of people who can’t control their drinking. A HRB study shows that the vast majority of people who drink are harming themselves.
Watch out for “fake news” about the bill
Though big alcohol say this bill won’t work, they keep spinning misleading facts to prevent the bill passing.
Ireland unlocked, a volunteer twitter account put together some short videos to show this. They highlight just some of the misleading statements from the Clare Byrne live show. The’re not as slick as Big Alcohol videos (they don’t have a big advertising & design agency ) but they do expose Big Alcohol fake news
False: Big Alcohol says alcohol does not cause cancer
False: Big Alcohol says our regulations are the strongest in Europe
False: Big Alcohol says most people drink moderately
False: Big Alcohol does not target children
So you can see how Big Alcohol are misleading people with fake news and disputing facts.
Where do you want your taxes spent ?
Would you rather your taxes out of your hard earned income were spent
- Subsidising big alcohol profits?
- Making sure your elderly Dad or Mother does not die on a trolley bed in a hospital corridor?
- Getting that special needs assistant for your child?
If it’s 2 or 3 you should support the bill. You should also support the bill if you want to pay less taxes.
You can make a difference
People power stopped St Arthur’s Day.
People power can get this bill passed.
Please take just 5 minutes to email your TD’s here saying you support the alcohol public health bill.
Or if you don’t have five minutes, just take a minute to sign our petition and share it with your friends. Click here
Maybe future Christmases for those 270,000 children living with families who misuse alcohol will be happier as a result of this bill.
Future generations will thank you.
So please, don’t delay take action now.