Poverty in Ireland
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And we don't let kids drive cars, and I don't see too many of them doing so ... yet we seem to have much greater difficulty keeping adults who have been banned from driving off the roads...
If the government wants to do something that is in their power to address a dysfunctional relationship with alcohol, close the loopholes that see 40% of drink cases fail, don't allow alcohol to be considered a mitigating factor in criminal offences... if somone gets so drunk they are not in control, they should be punished twice, once for losing control, and again for whatever they did when out of control. I think Ancient Greece approached it that way.
Yeah it's an interesting discussion but has perhaps gone down a side alley... ps where is this other place that caters for it???
I agree.
Alcohol is a part of the problem but the one common thread through all of this is education or, more particularly, the value placed on learning and skills.
I've always maintained that there are two types of school, not private and public but the ones where you get slagged for being stupid and the ones where you get slagged for doing your homework. There are parents who want their children to have a better life than they have and are willing and able to invest their time to make that happen and there are parents who can't be bothered and/or don't have the ability due to addiction, domestic strife, mental health issues or just their own lack of intellect or education.
We need to distinguish between schooling and education. My father left school at 14 but can quote Shakespeare and the classics. Education lasts your whole life and it is the absence of this mindset rather than income which is the most common factor in the section of society in inter-generational poverty.
TheBigShort
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The topic is about poverty and about generating ways and means to reduce it.
Its a big fish to fry so perhaps it could be considered that it wont be resolved within the pages of AAM.
I took up the cudgel with alcohol as I consider the abuse of alcohol has a signigicant prevalence in cyclical poverty traps. It is but one of many factors for persistent poverty.
I suggested ideas about debit cards and penalty points, not because they are the answer to drinking issues in this country but because it touches on the use of available technology to influence how we shape our society.
Since I first started drinking there have been major advancements in science, research and technology, behavioural economics etc that say to me that new thinking on this matter is clearly an option.
Instead, we appear stuck in the 20th century thinking of putting an age limit on alcohol consumption and...well, thats it, really.
Its a big fish to fry so perhaps it could be considered that it wont be resolved within the pages of AAM.
I took up the cudgel with alcohol as I consider the abuse of alcohol has a signigicant prevalence in cyclical poverty traps. It is but one of many factors for persistent poverty.
I suggested ideas about debit cards and penalty points, not because they are the answer to drinking issues in this country but because it touches on the use of available technology to influence how we shape our society.
Since I first started drinking there have been major advancements in science, research and technology, behavioural economics etc that say to me that new thinking on this matter is clearly an option.
Instead, we appear stuck in the 20th century thinking of putting an age limit on alcohol consumption and...well, thats it, really.
I think what you are describing above is what welfare should be..a safety net to help people in times of trouble. Sadly, for whatever reason, too many people are staying in the net and thereby remaining in poverty. Also, as more and more people are staying in this net, there is less and less money & resources for those who need it most.
There might be a few details to work out, but I think the idea is very good too.
I would like to see a campaign along the lines of "Drinking x pints of beer has the same effect on your brain cells as getting a dig in the head"
Another one I heard recently (and I found great) was...
"Alcohol....stealing happiness from tomorrow"
Ceist Beag
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I don't know where you're getting the offence from tbh odyssey, I certainly wasn't demonising anyone. I was simply pointing out that, imho, there is far too much access to alcohol these days, it is readily available in a number of places. This isn't aimed at those who drink responsibly but those who do not. I don't think it would be a hardship to have to go to an off licence to purchase wine tbh.
Whilst I'm not at all equating the two things as being the same, in terms of how we view the cause of the issue there is quite a difference between how we view the cheap and plentiful availability of alcohol here and how we view the cheap and plentiful availability of guns in the US.
I'll assume it wasn't intended so, but certainly some of your comments could have been interpreted that way e.g. especially about drinking at home - and eh I am one to get the rebuttal in first before waiting for the translation... But let's move on...
If it's not a hardship to have to go to an off licence to purchase wine, how will it prevent alcoholics from getting access to alcohol? It won't.
It is an inconvenience and those most inconvenienced are the responsible ones e.g. no one is being protected by denying me the ability to buy a bottle of wine at 11am on Sunday in a supermarket if that happens to be the handiest time for me to do the big shop.
Why should my choice of wine purchases be limited to those available in an off licence, at off licence prices? If LIDL have a good variety of wines at reasonable prices, why shouldn't I have that choice? Is an alcoholic really going to care about whether LIDL's Chianti is nicer than the one in the local off licence? No, but I do.
If you're an alcoholic and you can't pass a bottle of wine in a supermarket... then what next? You shouldn't have to pass by a pub or off licence in case you are tempted???
Where does it end? You can only buy meat from a butcher's shop because it is high in saturated fat and poor people shouldn't be buying meat as their money would go further on potatoes?
For a restriction on liberty to be justified, it must be proportionate and serve the purpose of protecting society. I see these measures as trying to protect individuals from themselves and we can't afford a government big enough to do that 100%, nor would one be desirable.
I'll come back again to France. They have drinkable bottles of wine in supermarkets for 2 euros and I can buy it at 9am on a Saturday or Sunday.
How is their war on poverty going? Better than ours?
Is Ireland's war on poverty aided by having the cheapest bottle of drinkable wine here being 10 euros and only available in an off licence with restricted opening hours? I haven't read a solid answer as to why Ireland's war on poverty justifies those restrictions.
I see lots of back slapping in government circles when we see dramatic drops in tobacco purposes in Ireland, some of it is real, but ask them about illegal traders in cigarettes and wait for the coughs and silences... if we push alcohol too far in that same direction, all it will mean is trips to Newry for some, and trips to back alleys for others...
There comes a point where the price difference after tax becomes so great that smuggling etc becomes profitable. Tobacco has reached that point... is alcohol next?
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France certainly has its fair share of alcoholics too, but a key difference in France (and mainland Europe) is that getting drunk is by and large, not cool. I think making "getting drunk" not cool here should be a priority..
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Early Riser
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The above would seem to imply that there are essentially two categories of people who drink - alcoholics and non-alcoholics. And, perhaps, that the latter are so because of some sort of innate disease.Some people seem particularly vulnerable to alcoholism and can become dependent relatively quickly but for the most part people slide into alcoholism over a considerable period of time. For any of us, the more regularly we drink and the more quantity we drink the more at risk we are of alcoholism.
I think the easy availability of alcohol at nearly every corner shop and nearly every filling station is an issue for the process of sliding into alcoholism in the first place - the convenience, the temptation, the impulse buy, the every day-ness of the whole process (the milk, the bread and the bottle of wine on the way home from work). As a person slides further along the road to addiction then easy availability becomes less of an issue - they will go out of their way to make a purchase. Price and availability do seem to impact on drinking patterns and on risk :
https://www.vox.com/2016/1/26/10833208/europe-lower-drinking-age
Having said that, I think we need to consider any specific proposal to tackle these issues very carefully (and maybe all this is straying too far from poverty).
As for France, although I am aware that consumption has declined, they seem to have their issues too, eg:
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The main way to reduce the three measures of poverty and social exclusion in Ireland is to boost employment.
Too few people are in employment.
Our employment rate is too low.
If we could increase the employment rate by 5 pp, then all three measures of poverty should fall.
Too few people are in employment.
Our employment rate is too low.
If we could increase the employment rate by 5 pp, then all three measures of poverty should fall.
Yes that is the road out of poverty - but what sticks and carrots to use to get people onto that road is the question...
Considering our economic situation after the crash our unemployment rate is not too bad. The unemployment rate was down to 6.1% in January last, down from a max of over 16% in 2012. With inflation still at zero that is not a bad result, by any standards. http://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/mue/monthlyunemploymentjanuary2018/. And it's expected to fall further to 5.3% next year https://ec.europa.eu/ireland/news/a...tinued-growth-in-a-changing-policy-context_en.
In relation to the rest of Europe our unemployment rate is also not bad, lower than the EU average of 7.3% http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Unemployment_rates,_seasonally_adjusted,_December_2017_(%25)_F2.png. We could of course have done more to reduce youth unemployment, e.g. followed the example of Germany's Hartz plan.
