The drinks industry would have not opposed health warning labels on alcohol if they did not pose an existential threat to its profits. However, Big Alcohol lobbying so hard to get the Government to delay implementation until 2029 may have backfired.

The unforeseen consequence is that more people now realise that alcohol is a class one carcinogen, in the same category as tobacco and asbestos.

If your reaction to that statement was either to flinch or roll your eyes, welcome to Ireland, where our relationship with alcohol is as convoluted and as hard to uproot as bindweed. Our per capita intake may not be the worst in Europe and it is true that it is falling, but our addiction to binge drinking means that our health is still getting hammered.

British travel writer and entrepreneur Dan Kieran once wrote a perceptive piece likening alcohol to a shared ritual, with an unspoken agreement that it is a good thing and part of who we are. He may as well have been taking about Ireland.

He described some people’s tacit reaction to his decision to drink only on rare occasions, which amounted to: “It’s nice to see you and I’m in a good mood and there are lots of things worrying me at the moment [that] drinking allows........

© The Irish Times