The Untold Story: Harms Experienced in the Irish Population Due to Others’ Drinking

Conclusion

The reach of alcohol’s harm to others (AH2O) across Irish society is evident within families, among friends, in the workplace, and is felt by strangers in public spaces. Health, social and law enforcement services become involved in dealing with the consequences of AH2O. The cost estimates of alcohol’s harm to others in Ireland provided in this study are based solely on the AH2O survey data. The estimated cost of harm due to others’ drinking in Ireland was €862.75 million annually. The costs estimated in this study are the tangible costs of harm to others. The survey results did not estimate the intangible cost (fear, pain, suffering, lost quality of life) of alcohol’s harm to others, but these are clearly substantial. Laslett et al. (2014) estimated the intangible costs of alcohol’s harm to others in Australia as 45% of the tangible costs. What is also excluded from the Irish cost estimates is information on AH2O from social and health agencies, including police data, road crash mortality and morbidity, death statistics, hospital records, child protection agency data, alcohol and drug services and helpline data, as was undertaken in Australia. This report quantifies some of the ‘untold story’ of alcohol’s harm to others in modern Ireland. It makes very clear that preventing and reducing harm to others is an urgent public health goal - equally as important as preventing and reducing harm to the drinker.