978. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív asked the Minister for Health if he will provide an estimate of financial resources spent each year on the care of persons suffering the effects of alcoholism; the trend of expenditure in the past few years; the approximate number of persons per year; if the cost is purely on hospital-community costs; if the amount provided to their agencies each year can be estimated; his views on the cost to industry of alcoholism; if any statistics are available; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31376/15]

Minister for Health (Deputy Leo Varadkar): The provision of services to prevent and treat addiction to alcohol is the responsibility of the Health Service Executive and as such, I have referred this element of the question to the Health Service Executive for attention and direct reply. If the Deputy has not received a reply from the HSE within 15 working days, please contact my Private Office who will follow up the matter with them.

The Report of the Steering Group on a National Substance Misuse Strategy, 2012 noted that the majority of Irish people drink in a harmful manner. The report further noted that the harms caused by the misuse of alcohol were estimated to cost the Exchequer €3.7 billion in 2007 representing 1.9% of Gross National Product that year. The figure is taken from the report, "Costs to Society of Problem Alcohol Use in Ireland", 2011. The estimate is based on the methods used in similar reports from other developed countries including the United Kingdom and used data from surveys and surveillance systems. The costs are broken down as follows:

I hope the above clarifies the cost of financial resources spent.