Alcohol kills about 3.3 million people every year, or 5.9 per cent of all deaths globally, a new report by the World Health Organisation notes. It is also linked to over 200 disease and injury conditions and is associated, for example, with liver cirrhosis, cancers, and alcohol dependence.

The Irish drink a lot, and in particular, binge drinking is very high here compared to other countries, at 39 per cent of people. Alcohol Action Ireland remarked that this ‘puts Ireland just behind Austria with 40.5 per cent at the top of the 194 countries studied and well ahead of our neighbours in Britain at 28 per cent’....