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A NEW REPORT into how much alcohol we drink in Ireland lays bare the stark facts about how it is harming our health.
The Health Research Board study, called Alcohol in Ireland: Consumption, harm, cost and policy response, shows that in 2013, alcohol consumption was responsible for three deaths every day.
It found that Irish people drink the equivalent of 29 litres of vodka a year, which adds up to 11 litres of pure alcohol.
This is the amount drunk per capita. The report points out:
As 20.6% of the adult population abstain from alcohol completely, those who drink alcohol consume even greater quantities (46 bottles of vodka or 130 bottles of wine or 498 pints of beer). Consumption in 2014 was 20.9% higher than the target of 9.1 litres, as recommended by the steering group report.
It also found:
In 2014, one-in-three self-harm presentations were alcohol-related.
An estimated 5,315 people on the Live Register in November 2013 had lost their job due to alcohol use.
The study looked at data compiled from the hospital in-patient reporting system, and says that what it found confirms the impact of alcohol consumption on Ireland’s health system.
Dr Graham Love, chief executive at the Health Research Board said: “This report clearly illustrates how Irish people’s drinking patterns are harming their health, increasing public health care costs and negatively impacting productivity.”
The report also highlights that the rate of alcoholic liver disease trebled between 1995 and 2013, according to Dr Deirdre Mongan, lead author and Research Officer at the HRB.
“The fact the highest rate of increase was found in 15-34 year olds is a real public health concern as alcoholic liver disease usually develops after a number of years of harmful drinking, and as a result it is normally seen in older people,” she said.
However, these increases would reflect the high occurrence of harmful drinking patterns that have been observed in numerous Irish surveys over the past decade.
What we drink – and how much of it
The study breaks down exactly how much alcohol Irish people drink every year. It found that in 2014 Irish drinkers consumed on average 11 litres of pure alcohol each.
This is equal to 29 litres of vodka, 116 bottles of wine or 445 pints of beer.
In 2012, Ireland had the fourth highest alcohol consumption level among 36 OECD countries – after Estonia, France and Lithuania.
In 2013, the HRB Alcohol Diary survey showed that more than 50% of Irish drinkers consume alcohol in a harmful manner – such as drinking too much in one sitting and imbibing more than the recommended number of standard drinks in a week.
What about our health?
The study also examined the impact of alcohol on our health and Ireland’s health system.
It found that:
The study looked at treatment for alcohol addiction, and found that a total of 7,549 cases entered treatment in 2013 with alcohol as their main problem drug.
These cases were predominantly male and the average age of those who sought treatment was 39-40 years. This is a decrease of just over 12% since 2011.
This decrease could reflect a true decrease in the number of cases, reduced levels of participation or under-reporting or a combination of these factors.
Dr Mongan said that between 2008 and 2013, 69% of alcohol-related deaths were due to medical causes (such as liver disease), 16% were due to poisonings and 15% due to traumatic causes (such as a road traffic collision).
This indicates that one death per day is due to poisoning or trauma and two deaths are due to chronic conditions.
Alcohol and money
The cost to the tax-payer for alcohol-related discharges from hospital is €1.5 billion, which is equal to €1 for every €10 spent on public health in 2012. This excludes the cost of emergency cases, GP visits, psychiatric admissions and alcohol treatment services.
In 2013, alcohol-related discharges accounted for 160,211 bed days in public hospitals, which added up to 3.6% of all bed days that year. That’s compared to 56,264 bed days or 1.7% of the total number of bed days in 1995.
Risky drinking patterns
The Health Research Board said that this new report “presents national and international evidence that the health of Irish people would improve if we reduce overall alcohol consumption and address risky drinking patterns”.
There is substantive and clear international evidence about the most effective policies to reduce alcohol-related harm. These include making alcohol more expensive, restricting its availability and reducing its promotion.
According to Dr Mongan, the data in this report shows that alcohol is price sensitive: “when its price increases, then its consumption decreases and vice versa”.
Dr Love concluded by saying that if we want to address the individual and societal costs of our alcohol consumption, we need to put evidence-based public health responses in place, like those proposed in the new Public Health Alcohol Bill.
The report is available to read on the HRB website.
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And employers should consider dropping said buzzwords from their job adverts!
Nowadays you need to spend as much time deciphering what they are looking for as you do looking at jobs. The other day I spotted a job that spent an entire paragraph trying to say that they were looking for a sales rep to manage accounts, look for new business and reach targets. What really caught me was about half way through the mindless twaddle was the line that went something like…
“You will be more of a hunter than a farmer”
One moment they are looking for a FMCG sales, rep the next they seemed to be discriminating against members of the agricultural community in favour of members of the bloodsports crowd. A bit of research later and this particular piece of business bull$hit was revealed to mean that while managing and maintaining a present customer base would be part of the job, your main focus would be seeking new business both through cross selling and new customer acquisition. Why not just say that FFS, I mean if you are a sales rep then that is your job no matter what business you are in.
Brian I like you would hate this kind of advertising speak in a job spec but the point of the whole thing might be to attract the kind of people that really buy into this kind of rhetoric and thereby putting a subliminal person spec in the advertisement. As it would infuriate me I would never consider applying for a job like that and the company is probably happy to avoid people that don’t fit their culture from applying.
And maybe stop asking people in interviews why they want to work in an office when they already know it’s for the money…
The worst are the ones who, rather than list their job title and company they work for, instead go for some existential explanation of how, while working in their depressing little cubical and counting the days to retirement, they are really changing the world.
You know the ones I mean
“-Don Smith-
Transforming the way clients engage with their customers one-to-one through unique visualization of significant future milestones.”
no Don – you’re a sales rep.
Oh no, Don isn’t a sales rep, Don is an Accounts Executive. Linda isn’t a secretary she’s a PA, it isn’t even a Personal Assistant any more. Maybe because Personal Assistant sounds a bit medical, like they help the boss go to the toilet and dress themselves…..actually quite a lot of PAs are only just short of doing that from what I’ve heard.
It’s Executive PA now.
‘Client Director’ is the latest one I’ve seen describing a sales rep.
The IT industry seems to be particularly bad for this sort of stuff.
People getting notions! The IT industry has to change every title, can’t be seen to be using boring old traditional commercial structures and titles, everyone is a coding rockstar or angular Dev guru. Some of the companies are almost like cults who try to absorb employees into their way of thinking and living. Ie solely in the building! Don’t go out for lunch we give you a free canteen. Think you might be too busy to get to the canteen? We’ll deliver to your desk! You are too busy aren’t you, you’d better eat at your desk. You’ve been to the canteen three days in a row, the staff know your order, they’ll deliver it to you, no worries, all part of being a valued member of our team, NOW DON’T LEAVE YOUR FU(K|NG DESK!
@bazhealy I avoid job roles with the word Rockstar or Guru. I am a Web Developer, but more recently they have branched it out to Frontend Developers and Backend Developers, so currently I’m a UI/UX Developer. Still means nothing to anyone.
I use Angular ;)
Who’s, what about being a “Ninja”? I see a lot of jobs nowadays for (programming/IT) Ninja’s. Does mean 4 years in a 3rd level institution and another 15-20 in Japan learning how to silently kill your opponents with a paper clip while debugging code?
@baz. I agree about IT companies. The real cringe-worthy ones are when they tell you that you will receive other benefits that make up for your lack of monetary reward such as being allowed to come to work in jeans, T-shirts and runners and being part of the XXXXX team, get free training inhouse (once heard a company describe themselves as a “university” for providing this nontransferable “training”). They also made a big deal out of the manager having breakfast with different groups of staff every Friday. Everyone paid for their own, needless to say. That foreign company now long gone and staff back on dole.
half of them wouldn’t cut. anyone can say anything. I’m aware of people changing their titles every 6 months and they NOT have those skills, more a rough idea, i know cos i know who they are. Or the other one under skills “getting back in touch” mwuahaha. they’re the worse communicators I’ve ever come across, get back in touch alright, if theres something in it for them, not a natural trait. theres options there for connecting with people, do not add people you don’t know but many famous people will accept, cos they don’t care, then many have it locked down and rightly so. “oh i have to reach 500+, i have to”, you’d think Facebook was bad. i think a brief intro is enough and apply with the full truth by email so they can check it.
omg bazhealy are you serious? thats like being in prison I guess its for some:( sadly
Linkedin seems to be the Facebook of the business world. People from all over the globe sending you “friend” requests just to bolster the amount of people in their “network”. Then they endorse your achievements hoping that you in turn will endorse them. It turns into a bit of a joke really because the whole thing is so fake.
I’d love to interview one of these people and pull a random name from their network list and ask them for example, what their relationship is with “Gunjar Singh” who is CEO of the Golden Dome Mobile Phone Store located on Baital Aman Jamemosjid Rd, Dhaka, Bangladesh? It’s just that Mr Singh endorsed your qualities of leadership, sales, marketing, passionate, enthusiastic, creative, team leader and so on and I was wondering how you came to meet or do business with this person seeing as how they gave you such glowing endorsements.
Then just sit back and watch them sweat.
exactly
What’s the deal with people referring to themselves in the third person on their linked in profile? “John is a highly motivated individual with proven track record of exceeding targets” and so on.. Are you schizophrenic?
Eventually there will be no men or women just w@nkers – Renton 1996
” if you’re trying to catch the eye of a would-be employer.” – Job-Bridge.
This is one site I never really got or understood. Anyone find it useful, genuinely useful? I’m self-employed so I’m assuming it’s not targeted at me? What’s the purpose of it?
Yup. Very. Work in London, easy to find jobs, get noticed, network and stay in touch professionally.
It’s like Facebook except people’s profile pictures are like a collection of adult communion photos and instead of posting dinner pics people share achievements of other people talking about how we can all achieve success through mindfulness using the cloud. You can see who stalks your profile which is nice.
Don’t forget the random pictures of Leonardo Di Capri in a suit, from Wolf of Wall St, accompanied by the inspirational quote about being successful in business.
They have changed my life!
Useful to have 500+ recruiters add you to try and badger you into this “perfect” role they have. I’ve gotten recruiters who in their haste to send a stock message, have neglected to actually read your profile and have sent a job the does not in anyway match your skillset. They essentially scan for a few acronyms to tick a box.
Going forward, I want you all to think outside the box.. then touch base.
Brendan i’m going to reach out to you in order to touch base going forward. Let’s get all our ducks in a row here and really brainstorm some blue sky thinking and see how much of our business we can move to the cloud.
Job advertisements use these terms all the bleeding time
LinkedIn works fine got my last 5 contracts through it.
Never accept a connection from a stranger will solve a lot of the issues people are complaining about.
It is the fact people treat it like Facebook that makes it useless to them.
LinkedIn is facebook/ social media for tossers
Complete misunderstanding of LinkedIn
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