Students and Alcohol - an Irish Love Story or an Abusive Relationship?

A confluence of events over the past few weeks has pushed the issue of Irish students and their attitude to alcohol to the forefront in my college. First of all we were producing our annual Student Cost of Living Guide, the relevance of which will become clear later. Then we attended our national Student Affairs conference (CSSI – the Confederation of Student Services in Ireland) where there were many presentations and panel discussions on the negative impact of alcohol on students. We also welcomed three visitors on a NASPA International Exchange (Gail from Clemson, Todd from Duke, and Eric from Sewanee, University of the South – all of whom were engaging, informative and gracious guests!) and as we tried to explain Irish student life to them we began to realise how bizarre it must sound (“Colleges sell alcohol to fund student activities?”). Most recently, at our annual DIT Campus Life team meeting, Dr Michael Byrne from UCC gave us a presentation on students and alcohol that was, literally, sobering.

The figures are stark. Alcohol consumption tripled in Ireland between 1960 and 2000. At 12.4 litres per capita, Irish people have the second highest alcohol consumption rate in Europe, and 44% of them binge drink (5 or more drinks at one sitting) on a weekly basis.



The figures for students are much worse – Irish students drink more than their counterparts who are not attending college, and on average they binge drink once a week. In the 2010 survey in University College Cork, 98.3% of the students drank alcohol, and equal numbers of male and female students were binge drinking, which is a significant change in the past decade. UCC, it should be noted, are no worse in this regard than any other college, and are to be praised for bringing the issue to public awareness.

I mentioned our Cost of Living Guide earlier, which we produce to help students and their parents budget for the coming year. We base the guide on the student expenditure figures from the Eurostudent survey. However, in our cost of living guide, we have to switch the amounts allocated for Food and for Socialising, because Irish students spend more on alcohol each week than they spend on food.

During the CSSI Conference panel discussions on alcohol, the disparity in views between the students and the health promotion professionals who were present was very clear. The students felt that Campus Alcohol Policies represented the nanny state; that they weren’t being treated as adults; that brewery sponsorship and alcohol advertising should be allowed back on campus; and that there should be an emphasis on education and “responsible drinking”. The health promotion professionals pointed out that the drinks companies were anxious to use education and promote “responsible drinking” because it was the most ineffective approach. Increasing the price of alcohol (Graph shows effect of alcohol becoming more affordable) and restricting access have been demonstrated again and again as the most effective way to tackle alcohol consumption.



The Irish National Alcohol Strategy has still not been implemented five years after it was published, and the drinks industry lobby groups have demonstrated their muscle time and again in limiting the effectiveness of any attempts to curb alcohol consumption. In May, pictures of Barack Obama and the Queen of England being offered pints of Guinness during their visits (the Queen declined to drink her pint) were beamed worldwide, consolidating the central place of alcohol in Irish society. There are welcome moves again to tackle alcohol in Irish Higher Education, and as was pointed out by our NASPA colleagues, a multi-layered approach needs to be taken to tackle the problem. There’s no one magic bullet to this problem, but it needs to be faced up to now.

Michael Byrne's excellent presentation may be found here.