No more free tipples  as new law is put forward – TheLiberal.ie – Our News, Your Views

No more free tipples  as new law is put forward





Like the benefits of a top-up with your touch-up at the hairdressers?Not anymore. 

In a bid to cease the normalisation of alcohol consumption in Ireland, Simon Harris, minister for health, is introducing a new bill to ban complimentary alcohol in such places.

Some salons and groupons like to offer customers a glass of prosecco whilst they wait, or as part of the price. If the new law comes into play, that won’t be the case anymore. The same for barbers offering a little quencher before a cut. 


Due the increasing levels of alcohol consumption and the hazardous affects on society, the new law in motion, is approved by the Irish Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists (IACP) and Addiction Counsellors of Ireland: 

A spokesperson for the committee said: “We would say that it’s not a healthy practice to offer alcohol free to customers of any service. It is precisely this level of normalisation that the proposed legislation seeks to deconstruct.

“In Ireland we have a cultural love affair with alcohol that ensures its omnipresence through our daily lives.

“Counteracting the ubiquity of alcohol in nearly every corner shop or petrol station is challenging enough.

But handing it out in a barbers, or other such everyday commercial engagement, simply serves to reinforce a cultural norm that must be breached if, as a society, we are to commence a process of reducing our consumption of alcohol.

The legislation also hopes to ban alcohol promotions such as Welfare Wednesdays, aimed at those receiving social welfare payments, Leaving-Cert-themed alcohol sales and all-day ‘bottomless’ prosecco brunches.” 

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