Minimum alcohol pricing is nigh

How much is the Perlenbacher Pils Six Pack at Lidl NI?

No not worth the trip. Thanks.

Jolly girls welcome too. 🙂

The price of beer is shocking. I rarely drink wine or spirits but I like a couple of beers just to relax at the weekend or in the garden in the summer. If I lived anywhere near the North I would buy it there but unfortunately, that is not an option. I've always thought it would be a cool hobby to brew your own beer and with the ridiculous price of beer now, I've finally decided to take the plunge. There is no way I'm paying those prices.

I find myself in North Cavan this am. I'll go to Enniskillen in the pm and stock up. As a middle aged person who hasn't done a bulk purchase in 20/30 years, this is exactly the kind of action that could be predicted and opposes the purpose of the law.

Change the law back!

Here's the reply i got from paschal when I emailed him about my feelings about mup and his party.

"Paschal here – thanks for your email.

The purpose of the introduction of Minimum Unit Pricing of alcohol is to target the strong and cheap alcohol products favoured by high-risk drinkers and sets a "floor-price" beneath which alcohol cannot legally be sold. This measure was contained in the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018 as a public health measure aimed at reducing harmful alcohol consumption.

By introducing this public health measure, the objective of your Government is aimed at ensuring that high alcohol content products cannot be sold at cheap prices. The floor price is dependent on the volume and the strength of the alcohol contained in the product. Minimum unit pricing is not a mechanism for setting recommended retail prices.

This initiative is not targeted ay good people like yourself and your wife but rather as a means of counteracting the sale and supply of cheap, high volume content alcohol that is having a detrimental effect on too many in our society.

I hope this information is of assistance to you. Please come back to me if you have any questions or queries arising from the details above.

Should there be any local or national matter where I can be of assistance, please do not hesitate to contact myself or Councillors Colm O’Rourke, Naoise O’Muiri or Ray McAdam and we will do whatever we can to help.

Best Wishes,"

I would go back with questions about where exactly the "Cheap alcohol" was to begin with - pointing out prices in the rest of the EU. I might also point out that it isn't the governments job to decide what we should and shouldn't drink or eat.

And finish up with querying the legality of it when following the EU regulations on e.g. price discrimination.

EDIT - I would even bring up the plan to extend pub and clubs hours. Who are they protecting with that one? Why didn't they open a public consultation in MUP the way they did on late licences etc.?

What does that even mean? Sorry you and your wife got caught in the firing line of this bs, we were targeting your neighbour who is on a lower income?

Nice to see craft / decent beers being reduced in price as part of price promotions.

Same with some decent wines that were in the €12-€15 bracket now under a tenner.

My Weihanstephaner gone up 50c per bottle in tesco... A rising Mup lifts all booze prices.. Or something like that... Price of a few beers to put a rosier hue on life in this damn place ffs

Was reading this morning it looks like it's on the way in the North soon

Public consultation, can only hope the public don't fall for it.

SF can hardly oppose it when they supported it in the Dail.

What price was it before? Even under MUP they can sell it at €2.05.

Price gouging disguised as MUP.

£1.25 showing on Tesco GB site.

It needs to be challenged here or against a national government.

Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland have limited regional powers so can't increase excise. So they can argue MUP was needed as they had no other way to increase the price.

If challenged against a national government, the EU might look more closely than they did with Scotland.

The Supreme Court in the UK concluded that the Scottish government had the authority to enact MUP. It rejected the contention that this was against EU law, and that higher taxes would be more suitable. Excise is well tested in the case.

Conclusion

63. The Lord Ordinary and First Division decided that it could reasonably be concluded, on an objective examination of the differing material put before them and now before the Supreme Court, that the proposed system of minimum pricing was proportionate in the sense required by European Union law and now explained by the Court of Justice. It is for the Supreme Court to determine whether this was a judgment that they were entitled to reach. Despite the forceful and very well presented submissions of Mr O’Neill, I consider that they were. A critical issue is, as the Lord Ordinary indicated, whether taxation would achieve the same objectives as minimum pricing. Although not all of the points on which he relied for his conclusion on this issue can still stand, the main point stands, that taxation would impose an unintended and unacceptable burden on sectors of the drinking population, whose drinking habits and health do not represent a significant problem in societal terms in the same way as the drinking habits and health of in particular the deprived, whose use and abuse of cheap alcohol the Scottish Parliament and Government wish to target. In contrast, minimum alcohol pricing will much better target the really problematic drinking to which the Government’s objectives were always directed and the nature of which has become even more clearly identified by the material more recently available, particularly the University of Sheffield’s April 2016 study. As to the general advantages and values of minimum pricing for health in relation to the benefits of free EU trade and competition, the Scottish Parliament and Government have as a matter of general policy decided to put very great weight on combatting alcohol-related mortality and hospitalisation and other forms of alcohol-related harm. That was a judgment which it was for them to make, and their right to make it militates strongly against intrusive review by a domestic court. That minimum pricing will involve a market distortion, including of EU trade and competition, is accepted. However, I find it impossible, even if it is appropriate to undertake the exercise at all in this context, to conclude that this can or should be regarded as outweighing the health benefits which are intended by minimum pricing. In the overall context of the Scottish or, on the face of it, any other market, it appears that it will be minor, though it will hit some producers and exporters to the Scottish market more than others. Beyond that, the position is essentially unpredictable. Submissions that the Scottish Government should have gone further to predict the unpredictable are not realistic. The system will be experimental, but that is a factor catered for by its provisions for review and “sunset” clause. It is a significant factor in favour of upholding the proposed minimum pricing régime.

64. For these reasons, I consider that the appeal should be dismissed.