Binge drinking 'is 58% of men's nights out'
Binge drinking sessions account for more than half of Irish men’s nights out, new research showed today.
The proportion of nights which turned into heavy drinking sessions was higher in the Republic than in any other European country surveyed.
This type of consumption accounted for 58% of Irish men’s drinking, compared with 40% in the United Kingdom and 9% in France.
Launching the findings in Dublin, Health Minister Micheál Martin announced a number of initiatives aimed at reversing the trend.
He said: “The clear message from this research is that we must change our drinking patterns – we need to cut down and slow our drinking.”
The study carried out for the health department was based on a recent comparative European survey involving Finland, Sweden, Germany, the UK, France and Italy.
The proportion of Irish people who had not consumed any alcohol during the past 12 months was 23%. This was three times as high as in the Nordic countries and twice as high as in the other countries surveyed.
Despite the high abstention rate, average total alcohol consumption per respondent was 9.3 litres – leading to the conclusion that consumption per drinker was 12.1 litres.
This was far higher than the other six countries.
Nearly half (48%) of all Irish men and 16% of women said they usually binge drank at least once a week.
This compared with 38% and 12% respectively in the UK, which was the second highest country.
The study also showed that there were more problems per drinker in Ireland - such as falls, unintentional sex and public order offences – than in any of the countries surveyed.
Mr Martin said: “It goes without saying that this type of harm has enormous impact, both in personal terms and in the burden it places on our acute services and justice systems.”
The minister launched a Guide to Re-thinking your Drinking, to be distributed among GPs, and announced a new advertising campaign to be broadcast in cinemas next month.
He also announced that proceeds from a new single by Irish artist Sinead O’Connor would go towards children’s charity Barnardo’s and would contain a booklet with information on alcohol.
More than 1,000 adults were questioned about their drinking habits by Lansdowne Market Research on behalf of the health department’s Health Promotion Unit. The research was conducted in September 2002.
