That last scenario you've described has more to do with the generous, lone-parent friendly. welfare state we've created, than alcohol itself. Other European countires have lower age limits, cheaper alcohol and much more generous opening times but don't have the problems we appear to have. Restrictions, it seems don't work!

No IMO that's wishful thinking.
The Irish drink too much and binge drink. It is a cultural thing. Other brutalised peoples such as native americans and aborigines have alcohol problems too.
There is no basis for thinking that cutting lone parent welfare, lowering drinking age and lowering prices would lead to Ireland having continental attitudes to alcohol.

The prams and cans scenario is just how it manifests at the bottom shockingly. But there's a general illness all over the place.

Lower alcohol prices has definitely made the binge drinking problem an even bigger issue. Back in my day, if you were having a carry-out from the off-licence at home, you'd buy 6 cans of Bud/Heineken/whatever, and that would be your lot. Now, for the same cost, you can buy 24 bottles of the same brew for the same price.

I don't disagree with you there - but we're in an open European market now and almost everything is cheaper (the Flymo lawnmower blew up on me last week and I paid less for a new one than it cost 11 years ago!). You saw what happened when Lenny (RIP) raised the VAT or excise on booze - everyone headed north and did all their other shopping while they were up there too. Supermarkets can source cheap alcohol all over the place - look at LIDL selling lovely German beers for half nothing. The genie is out of the bottle - if you'll excuse the pun!

Cheap alcohol also aids underage drinking – a naggin of spirits costs pretty much the same as it did 20 years ago when I was trying to get pished with my friends in dark alleys.

Yes to homebrewing – you can order ingredients online and make really great beer – check out http://www.beoir.org.

And pffff to the idea that we drink a lot because we're poor oppressed post-colonials, it's the cold weather – look at a map of Europe and see where the drunk countries are; you could draw a line from north to south.

Anyone seeing an upsurge in home brewing. Loads of people I know doing it or looking into doing it.

The VFI's call for a minimum price for alcohol should be greeted enthusiastically, and the government should give in to their demands PROVIDED THAT the VFI members stick to that minimum!
I've been campaigning for years that what this country needs is a low alcohol, low price pint, say 3.6% and one euro twenty, a true pint of plain accessible to all, guaranteed to fill our pubs once again, or even bring some of em back from the dead.
Arrange for this low price pint to be sold TAX FREE so long as manufacturers agree that all its ingredients and materials must be sourced and made in Ireland.
The low price pint always used to be the HALLMARK of our happy community.

Defo it's the weather. It's all fine and dandy strolling down a boulevard having an espresso in one cafe, a glass of wine in another onto the next for a light dinner with an aperitif when you live in nice climes but this is the North Atlantic. It's cold, it rains and during the winter it can get rather bleak. You need somewhere indoors, warm where people you know drop in and out. One of the worse things about the Celtic tiger was that it killed the one of the few things that made life here more manageable.

To the VFI I say, the Tiger is dead it took with it the days of selling a shite product at high prices, move on, so you're not going to be a Superpub millionaire. Such is life.

Home distilling is where it's really at!

Defo it's the weather. It's all fine and dandy strolling down a boulevard having an espresso in one cafe, a glass of wine in another onto the next for a light dinner with an aperitif when you live in nice climes but this is the North Atlantic. It's cold, it rains and during the winter it can get rather bleak. You need somewhere indoors, warm where people you know drop in and out. One of the worse things about the Celtic tiger was that it killed the one of the few things that made life here more manageable.

To the VFI I say, the Tiger is dead it took with it the days of selling a shite product at high prices, move on, so you're not going to be a Superpub millionaire. Such is life.

Since about the turn of the millennium there has been a huge change in the off licence trade. The price divergence between pub and off licence was not so great that it actively discouraged you from going to the pub. You didn't mind paying the small premium. Then the Celtic Tiger Mark 2 (property) happened along with reform of the off licence trade regulations and you can now get a bottle of Heineken for €1 in the offy while it will cost you over €4.50 in a pub. The selection of beers and wine have also exploded over the past few years. When it came to wine there was a time you could only get red, white or blue.

It does make me wonder that before the reform of off licence laws, were people being ripped off by the off licences but they just didn't know it.

When it came to wine there was a time you could only get red, white or blue.