Beaumont Hospital’s liver specialist Professor Frank Murray didn’t chew his words when he was interviewed for the upcoming finale of RTE’s “What are you eating?”
The doctor gave a stark warning to Irish drinkers that we are all drinking far too much and on a worldwide scale, we drink to major excess.
Murray said: “Alcohol is no ordinary commodity.
It is an addictive substance that causes three deaths per day here in Ireland so we need to treat it quite differently.
The average consumption by a drinker of alcohol is more than 150 bottles of wine per year.
Most alcohol is now consumed at home. Women are drinking very heavily as well as men drinking heavily.
When I was a trainee thirty years ago we mainly saw men drinking in pubs coming in with liver failure.
Now we are seeing much younger people and both men and women presenting with irreversible liver failure due to alcohol.
I think the idea that alcohol is part of our national consciousness and national identity is something that has been cleverly played upon by the alcohol industry.”
Professor Murray’s statement came as it’s revealed more than 1,000 deaths are attributed to alcohol-related in Ireland every year.