How local is local? Assessing the prospects for local alcohol policy in Ireland.

This paper was presented in response to Dr Holder's keynote address at the 2nd annual conference Debating Public Policies on Drugs and Alcohol. Three questions are raised in relation to Dr Holder's work, and these are answered specifically from an Irish perspective. Firstly the paper examines how novel are Dr Holder's ideas about community alcohol in an Irish context. It reports that Dr Holder's views on alcoholism as a policy issue rather than a disease are not particularly novel to researchers, yet they are not well known to the public and as yet have not significantly influenced policy implementation in this country. Secondly it investigates the cultural and institutional factors that assist or militate against such policy initiatives in Ireland. Culturally, the author feels, Ireland is not sympathetic to public health policy based on a rejection of alcohol. Finally the paper looks at the policy processes in Ireland and what can be expected from them. The paper outlines two competing policies in Ireland regarding alcohol: one based on a neoliberal view concerning the liberalisation of drink retail and the other driven by public health concerns. The former, the author feels, is in the ascendancy regarding driving Irish policy