While Health Minister Leo Varadkar roars at ye about what’s good for your health…remember Fine Gael is working for the Vintners.
As the Blueshirts and the publicans work hand-in-glove the minimum pricing policy (Public health (Alcohol) Bill 2015) is being passed off as some kind of health initiative.
Here’s the FG 2011 Manifesto:
Supporting Irish Pubs: Fine Gael recognises the importance of the Irish pub for tourism, rural jobs and as a social outlet in communities across the country. We will support the local pub by banning the practice of below cost selling on alcohol, particularly by large supermarkets and the impact this has had on alcohol consumption and the viability of pubs.
Meanwhile over at VFI HQ in 2011…
“ The availability of cheap drink in supermarkets is a major contributor to pubs closing and the introduction of a minimum price that alcohol could be sold at would go a long way to keeping family run pubs trading and saving thousands of jobs throughout Ireland.”
But it’s not like FG get funding from the VFI or anything.
The party runs an annual dinner in Dublin every November. Last year, tickets for the event attended by 1,200 guests were €120 a head, meaning the party brought in up to €144,000 in ticket sales.
The bulk of the tables are taken by Fine Gael ministers, TDs, senators and councillors. But corporate tables were also taken by the Vintners’ Federation of Ireland, the Irish Farmers’ Association, accountants Grant Thornton and the Russell Court Hotel.
Carry on.
Comments
it’s like an inverted dicaprio in “inception” – the higher up you go and the more you open your mind, the more revolting the truth becomes.
Minding two dogs for a mate and had to duck out to the auld synagogue to pay my rent yesterday so I left the radio on to keep the hounds company (sage advice gleaned from some guy on a bus one day, works a treat). So anyhoo, when I walked back in they were playing ‘Final Countdown’ and an assortment of 80’s cheese, so I left it on for the craic, had a little dance with the doggies and then listened to an hour of commercial radio, just to see what it was like i guess… Nova, to be more specific. The news bulletin came along at the top of the hour – and ’twas pure propaganda now, I tell ya. This ridiculous Vintners/FG cash grab masquerading as a legislative answer to a social problem was mentioned, along with the introduction of a busking license for Dublin city center….. Like, the hospitals are fucked, you can barely walk the streets at night; and here we are cracking down on Buskers and the price of a can of lager within a free market economy. Sunday Indepennis O’ Brien did a big spread on Leo and how amazing and brave he is for coming out – that’s his private life, how bout being brave enough to do his job as Minister for Health and sorting out the mess? I just want my relatives and neighbors to be able to be cared for when they need it, and not sit on a trolley in a hallway for 3 days and nights. What this fucker does with his mickey in the night time is his own business, to be entirely honest with ya now.
This is a joint pre-budget submission from Barnardos, Focus Ireland, Rape Crisis Network Ireland, St Vincent De Paul, The Ballymun Local Drugs Taskforce, he Irish Cancer Society, The Irish Heart Foundation, The Irish Medical Organisation, The ISPCC, The National Youth Council of Ireland, The No Name Club, the North West Alcohol Forum calling for a minimum pricing of alcohol – http://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/media/committees/healthandchildren/Alcohol-Action-Ireland-pre-budget-submission.pdf
Minimum pricing won’t work. There’s enough evidence to prove that and the Sheffield model it was based on was only successful in very specific areas. If you don’t have an embedded culture of high pricing, such as they do in some Scandinavian countries then you’ll be waiting a very long time for a shift. Waste of time, gimmicky and contrary to popular economic thinking.