Press Room

Macra na Feirme national president, Mr Colm Markey, said that the results of a survey recently carried out by his organisation show that many young people are still not concerned about the dangers of drinking to excess.

Over three hundred young people between the ages of seventeen and thirty-five years of age were interviewed for the recent Macra na Feirme national survey on alcohol consumption levels, with only ten per cent of those surveyed revealing themselves to be non-drinkers.

With twenty-four per cent of those surveyed saying they drank on average once a week, respondents were then asked their opinion on acceptable levels of alcohol consumption in an attempt to define what young people believe to constitute 'binge drinking'.

* Results show that fifty-seven per cent of those surveyed did not believe themselves to be binge drinking unless they had consumed ten or more alcoholic drinks.
* Despite the fact that the World Health Organisation defines binge drinking as six or more standard drinks in a single session, only twenty per cent of the young drinkers surveyed agreed with this definition.
* Fifty three per cent of those surveyed admitted that, on at least one occasion, they had gone out at night and not remembered how they got home due to alcohol consumption.
* The survey also revealed that most young drinkers (fifty percent) are actually drinking more than once a week.

Commenting on the results, Mr Markey said that the figures indicated a worrying trend.
'It has recently been revealed that alcohol-related problems are costing the State an estimated EUR 3 billion a year. Furthermore, many people do not really consider the long-term health risks such as liver disease, heart disease and certain forms of cancer. Irish attitudes to alcohol consumption certainly need to change and this can only be done by targeting our young people and highlighting the dangerous effects of over-use of alcohol,' he said.

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