Alcohol companies support for responsible drinking campaigns is little more than a “clever exercise in corporate branding”, one advertising expert has claimed.

Dublin Institute of Technology’s Dr Patrick Kenny said recent moves by the industry to join the public-health fight were “possible to interpret … as a genuine attempt to tackle Ireland’s problematic drinking culture”.

But he said it was also possible alcohol companies had learned the lesson of Big Tobacco’s “defensive and reactive stance” when that industry was put under scrutiny, a period which ended in tight regulation.