Drinkaware in Ireland
Introduction
Alcohol is no ordinary commodity, and those who profit from its sale are no ordinary corporate citizens. For over two decades, the alcohol industry in Ireland has invested tens of millions of euros in a sophisticated corporate social responsibility (CSR) vehicle – Drinkaware.
This CSR organisation is designed to present the industry as part of the solution to the harms its products create. However, as will be shown below, Drinkaware’s origins, its industry funding, and its persistent efforts to secure influence in Irish schools, workplaces, the health service, and the media all reinforce that such an organisation has no legitimate role in public health.
As a result, though, of long-standing campaigning and advocacy in Ireland, Drinkaware is no longer operating in Irish school but still retains a significant presence in the media and elsewhere.
The alcohol industry’s corporate social responsibility efforts
Alcohol is no ordinary commodity; it is a depressant drug with significant physical and mental health implications for those who use it. Its consumption is found to play a causal role in more than 200 diseases, injuries and other health conditions.[1] As has been well documented, alcohol-attributable conditions show a dose-response relationship with volume of alcohol use – the more alcohol consumed, the higher the risk of disease and harm. This is the true nature of the product which the alcohol industry sells.
However, as knowledge grows about the harmful consequences of alcohol use, and as governments increase activities to protect public health and the public purse, the alcohol industry has invested significant resources to promote itself as a legitimate partner in reducing alcohol harm and consumption.
These ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) initiatives are sophisticated campaigns by global alcohol companies that promote them as good corporate citizens, and attempt to frame arguments to their own ends, such as focusing on the personal responsibility of the drinker rather than the producer and supplier of alcohol,[2] and more recently, focusing on zero-alcohol products as a harm reduction measure.
Organisations that carry out these activities on behalf of the industry are known as Social Aspects Public Relations Organizations (SAPROs). SAPROs are “front groups” of risk industries, such as alcohol, tobacco, and gambling industries and seek to forestall regulation and prioritise industry profits over public health.[3] Such a situation has led the WHO to state that when commercial actors, like the alcohol industry, are able to avoid the costs that arise from their health harming products, they undermine public health and wellbeing.[4]
SARPOs, for their part, operate on behalf of the alcohol industry at an international level and one of the most well-known of these organisations in Ireland is Drinkaware. As research has shown, SAPROs “position themselves ingeniously and can confuse media outlets, policy makers and the public, which often assume the information is coming from an independent reliable source.”.[5] This is precisely what Drinkaware does.
Who are Drinkaware?
The Alcohol Awareness Foundation Ireland (AAFI) is a Company Limited by Guarantee which registered with the Company Registration Office[6] in 2016 and Charities Regulator in 2019[7] – it is otherwise known by its snappy corporate social responsibility (CSR) brand title – Drinkaware. The AAFI is the Irish licence holder of ‘Drinkaware’ brand title fashioned in the UK by the alcohol industry in the early noughties.
However, the AAFI is also the heir of a previous entity known as MEAS which held the ‘Drinkaware’ title in Ireland from 2006. [8] [9] Upon its foundation in 2002 MEAS was the acronym for an organisation called ‘Managing the Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society Limited’, however, from 2003 it was renamed the ‘Mature Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society Limited’.
Drinkaware operated as a classic CSR vehicle for the alcohol industry, with MEAS’s CEO stating in 2012 that there was a need to create “a brand for drinkaware.ie…” with the brand development, approach, and messaging evaluated and benchmarked on a regular basis.[10] However, MEAS served the alcohol industry poorly. Indeed, evidence of this can be seen in their disgraceful statements upon being excluded from participation in Ireland’s Alcohol Awareness Week, due to being an alcohol industry funded organisation, when they likened the decision to the ‘no Irish, no blacks need apply’ message of another era.[11]
Moreover, the organisation continued to receive persistent criticism from a range of public health organisations, especially the Steering Group on the National Substance Misuse Strategy in 2012 who expressed concern about the role of MEAS as it was funded by the alcohol industry.[12]
Therefore, it was of little surprise when MEAS ceased operations in 2016 and subsequently dissolved as a company[13] and deregistered as a charity.[14] However, before this, MEAS made a significant move – it transferred its entire cash reserves of €465,771 to Alcohol Awareness Foundation Ireland CLG.[15] The cash transfer and cessation of operations was an effort to formally severe any direct link to Ireland’s alcohol industry, while the new entity, AAFI, was still authorised to use the name Drinkaware and it retained its character as an industry-funded and industry-favoured corporate social responsibility organisation.[16]
Since 2002, the Irish alcohol industry has sustained initiatives with a conservatively estimated, €32 million investment.[17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] Moreover, ‘Drinkaware’, widely appreciated in the alcohol industry as a trusted brand, and by extension partner, has enjoyed a €700 million brand investment over the last fourteen years, appearing, as it does, on every advert and promotion for alcohol over that time.
Drinkaware Donors (2024) [27]
Drinkaware and schools
Could you imagine an organisation funded by the tobacco industry running a school programme about smoking? Well, from 2017 to 2023 that is what happened in some Irish schools in relation to alcohol as over 170 schools educated children with a programme designed and paid for by the alcohol industry.[28] [29]
From 2017 to early 2023 Drinkaware sought to infiltrate Irish schools under the guise of its ‘Alcohol Education Programme’.[30] Through their ‘programme’, they sought to erase the commercial determinants of health via a convenient partnership that allowed the alcohol industry to adopt the role of solution maker to problems they themselves largely create and exploit.
The reason this was so concerning was not only because Drinkaware is funded by the alcohol industry, but when similar education programmes by Drinkaware UK were independently evaluated by researchers they concluded that industry-sponsored education programmes serve industry interests and promote consumption while purportedly educating children about harms and influences of alcohol use.[31] Moreover, these programmes placed the onus on young people to make ‘responsible choices’ rather than on policymakers to create a protective environment.
Despite AAI raising concerns about this inappropriate practice with the Minister for Education on several occasions, Drinkaware continued to make the resource available to teachers and schools. Indeed, it did so in spite of explicit warnings from the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the Department of Health that schools should not get involved with alcohol-funded initiatives.[32]
Moreover, this all happened despite the HSE and Department of Education having produced a school’s resource – Know the Score – which included a recommendation that “Teaching resources which have been developed by or funded by the alcohol industry are inappropriate for use in schools.”.[33]
Eventually, however, due to work by AAI, the Irish Community Action on Alcohol Network (ICAAN), and others, the Department of Education intervened and wrote to schools stating unequivocally:
“There is no place for the alcohol industry in schools… it is not appropriate to use resources or materials produced or funded by the alcohol industry for education and awareness on alcohol in schools, or for teachers to attend, in their professional capacity, associated training which may be offered by organisations funded by the alcohol industry.”.[34]
Shortly after this letter was issued to schools the Drinkaware’s ‘Alcohol Education Programme’ ceased, however, by that time 15,000 children in 177 schools had been educated with a programme designed and paid for by the alcohol industry.[35] [36]
Drinkaware and the health service
There are a number of organisations in Ireland working to address alcohol issues including the government funded Drug and Alcohol Task Forces, the community group, Alcohol Forum/Well Ireland, multiple treatment services and since 2002 Ireland has had a national independent advocate for reducing alcohol harm – Alcohol Action Ireland – but the alcohol industry clearly wanted an organisation to do their own bidding. Hence, in 2019, ‘Drinkaware’, who at that time claimed to have the stated object of ‘the promotion of the responsible consumption of alcohol by adults’, brought further a CSR purpose to their approach by declaring themselves ‘the national charity working to prevent and reduce alcohol misuse in Ireland’.
Interestingly Drinkaware Ireland uses a tag line – “Get the Facts”. Yet analysis of its website and tools[37] has noted that these materials undermine the information on alcohol harms that they disseminate and may normalise or encourage alcohol consumption. Not only that, but many of the funders of Drinkaware have vociferously campaigned against the public health measure on alcohol, especially the policy of providing health information labelling on alcohol products as legislated for by the Oireachtas in 2018, and which has still not been implemented as a result of that opposition.[38] [39]
In an effort to scupper alcohol health information labelling, the alcohol industry made submissions to the EU Commission’s Technical Regulations Information System (TRIS) process[40] claiming that the association between alcohol and cancer risk was apparently complex and cannot be adequately explained in a single warning label and that this is a complicated scientific and policy issue that people couldn’t possibly get to grips with by giving them public health information.[41]
The evidence linking drinking and cancer is well established. In 1988, the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded that alcohol is carcinogenic to humans.[42] Research in the decades since has only strengthened the conclusion, including for breast, liver, colorectal and oesophageal cancers. While in 2023, the WHO and the IARC declared in a joint statement: “No safe amount of alcohol consumption for cancers can be established.”.[43]
The reason this is interesting is because analysis of Drinkaware Ireland literature by Prof. Mark Pettigrew shows the deliberate omission of information on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) and cancer on their materials – warnings which alcohol health information labelling set out to address.[44] Analysis of an infographic (or rather, mis-infographic) produced by Drinkaware Ireland, purporting to inform the public about the harms of drinking selectively omitted any mention of cancer or FASD.[45] In particular, the non-inclusion of women in such Drinkaware Ireland infographics, means that breast cancer was not included, despite alcohol accounting for 1 in 8 breast cancers.[46] This particular piece of misinformation, argues Prof. Pettigrew, parallels the alcohol industry’s denial that alcohol is an inherently harmful product, and instead misleadingly suggests to schoolchildren that it is only ‘too much’ alcohol that is the problem for them.[47]
The research by Pettigrew et al. goes further and reveals how alcohol industry CSR vehicles use what are called “dark nudges” and “sludge” in their responsible drinking communications to exploit consumers’ cognitive biases to spread mixed messages about alcohol harms.[48] “Dark nudges” are behavioural economic approaches to exploit common cognitive biases in a harmful way, while the term “sludge” has been used to describe strategies that utilise cognitive biases to make behaviour change harder.[49] Such techniques include social norming, which suggests “most people” drink as well as priming verbal and visual drinking cues embedded within apparent health warnings.[50] It is important that politicians, policymakers, and the public are aware of how these techniques nudge consumers toward industry misinformation and undermine scientific evidence.
Therefore, it goes without saying that, as with education, there is an inherent conflict associated with the alcohol industry attempting to play a role in providing public health advice. Thanks to the work of AAI and others there is now policy in Ireland that the health service, or HSE funded organisations, thankfully, do not engage with the alcohol industry. A significant milestone in this journey resulted from the Clarion Declaration of 2008.
On 15 May 2008, 53 international experts from the fields of alcohol research, public health and NGOs gathered in Dublin through Alcohol Action Ireland to discuss the positioning of science, knowledge and policy in relation to the alcohol industry.
The Dublin group came to a number of important conclusions namely:
- The twin aims of protecting the public from alcohol related harm and the alcohol industry’s mission to promote and sell as much alcohol as possible are inherently incompatible;
- Alcohol research plays a vital part in the development of alcohol public policy by bringing the harm associated with alcohol to the attention of policymakers and political decision-makers. Research also informs the development of effective strategies to reduce alcohol related harm and their associated evaluation; and,
- Therefore, to protect the integrity and legitimacy of alcohol research, and the reputation of academic institutions in the field of alcohol research, as well as public health no funding relationships with the alcohol industry should be entered into.
This was a key step towards the development of HSE policy that public health information on alcohol must be impartial, authoritative and provided by expert sources.[51] It was also underpinned by Department of Health legislative developments which would require health information labelling on alcohol products that would include details of a HSE alcohol information website, AskAboutAlcohol.[52]
The HSE policy further states:
“The HSE’s information programmes are supported by clinical experts, are evidence-based, have clear behaviour-change objectives, and their impact is measured and evaluated. Public health information should not be connected to the alcohol industry as the industry’s obligation is to grow shareholder value. Promoting health and wellbeing and increasing industry profits are not coherent are incompatible strategic objectives.” [53]
Moreover, the policy goes further and states that any health or social care organisation receiving HSE funding should not engage with or utilise any publications or materials produced by the Drinks Industry, including their Social Aspect organisation Drinkaware, as it is not their area of expertise and all organisations should utilise alcohol information from the HSE website askaboutalcohol.ie.[54]
As a result of the strong leadership of the HSE, Department of Health, and AAI, Drinkaware have not been able to secure a foothold in the area of public health. Unfortunately, however, the same cannot be said for the media in Ireland.
Drinkaware and workplaces
Drinkaware partners with workplaces to provide workshops, webinars and health promotion resources. It claims that these workshops are interactive and are designed to facilitate meaningful discussion and engagement with participants.
However, an alcohol industry funded body providing advice to workplaces is oxymoronic as alcohol directly undermines a productive, thriving workplace, and in fact imposes significant costs on workers, employers, and the broader economy.
Consequences of alcohol on businesses and productivity are:
- Presenteeism, working below capacity due to hangovers or intoxication, accounts for 77% of total alcohol-related productivity loss;[55]
- Absenteeism, alcohol-related absences, cost an estimated €1.5 billion per year in Ireland according to an Ibec study from the early;
- Increased tardiness, early leaving, theft, and reduced workplace morale, amongst others;[56]
- A cyclical relationship between alcohol use and unemployment, each reinforcing the other;[57] and,
- Premature death and chronic disease disproportionately affecting working-age people, with peak alcohol-related mortality occurring during peak productive years.[58] [59]
Workers under the influence of alcohol can be a danger to others, and therefore a risk factor, if they are working under the influence of alcohol, especially in occupational activities which involve a high risk of injury at work.[60] Working under the influence of alcohol, or with alcohol hangover, can increase the risk of tardiness at work and/or leaving work early, resulting in loss of productivity; the development of inappropriate behaviour, such as theft and other crimes; poor relations with colleagues; and low company morale.[61]
As indicated by the OECD, implementing workplace interventions to reduce hazardous drinking levels can have a positive economic impact by reducing absenteeism, presenteeism, accidents and lost earnings from premature mortality.[62] Therefore, the workplace also represents a useful access point for health promotion, including for addressing alcohol-related harm, but in order to be effective, the resources used by employers and workers must be accurate, scientifically and medically based, and independent from the alcohol industry and alcohol industry funded organisations.
Drinkaware and advertising
Alcohol is one of the most heavily marketed products in the world with estimates on annual spending ranging from $7.7bn to $17.7bn.[63] [64] In Ireland, the spend on marketing alcohol to the public was conservatively estimated to be €115m per annum in 2021[65] – a significant amount of which is spent advertising in print media, online, on radio, and on television. Thus, the alcohol industry wields significant power and influence in the media through advertising, sponsorships, and media representation.
Indeed, academics have often pointed to the significant revenue streams that come from advertisements and have highlighted that media outlets often feels it necessary to, at least unconsciously, protect these sources.[66] This was a point which Harry Browne, a lecturer in journalism in the School of Media of Dublin Institute of Technology, made in relation the role of the media during the Oireachtas Banking Inquiry when he stated that “Much of the mainstream media seems to me to be very conflicted because of their reliance on… advertising. That doesn’t mean reporters consciously avoid writing bad news stories, but it’s hard to run against the tide when everyone is getting rich.”.[67] Resultantly, the media may feel obligated to carry stories, or mute criticism, in order not to offend their advertising revenue sources and disturb a close, financially beneficial relationship.
Such soft power is so important for the alcohol industry because media coverage of alcohol-related policy measures can influence public debate. Indeed, academics found that Irish media coverage of alcohol policy measures is more aligned with the interests of the alcohol industry than public health. In ‘An Analysis of Media Coverage of Alcohol Warning Labels With a Cancer Message in Canada and Ireland’, the authors found news coverage of the cancer labelling provisions proposed in Ireland’s Public Health (Alcohol) Bill was primarily negative and consistently foregrounded alcohol industry perspectives. Interestingly another measure within the alcohol legislations is that all alcohol advertisements should be stripped of their potent myths and be strictly factual while also carrying the same health information warnings as required by the labelling regulations. This measure, like the labelling provision has still not been implemented despite its passage in 2018.
Within this milieu sits ‘Drinkaware’. As the alcohol industry’s trusted brand Drinkaware is part of their advertising landscape and has enjoyed a €700 million brand investment over several years, appearing, as it does, on every advert and promotion for alcohol.
The situation has not gone unnoticed by government, clinicians, and health and social care bodies. As a result of its prominent media position, some media outlets were using Drinkaware material to provide information to the public. In 2019 this came to a head when the then Minister for Health, Simon Harris TD, wrote to Irish media outlets asking them not to use Drinkaware information. Instead of using Drinkaware.ie information, the Minister for Health pointed media organisations to the facts and data provided by the HSE’s website AskAboutAlchohol.ie.
The Minister’s letter stated:
It has come to my attention that some media and other organisations are providing the public with information from the alcohol-industry funded initiative Drinkaware… I am writing to ask you to consider using the HSE’s askaboutalcohol.ie information resource for the public when providing information about alcohol and to do so instead of using alcohol-industry funded resources.[68]
This led to a backlash from sections in the media who accused the Minister for Health of lecturing and interfering. In the Irish Times business section, a steadfast defence of Drinkaware was launched with the journalist in question claiming they had “… trawled through Drinkaware’s online resources at length… [and] couldn’t find anything dark or misleading”.[69] However, this was subsequently dismantled in a letter to the newspaper from Prof. Mark Pettigrew and Dr Nason Maani which stated: “The peer-reviewed research we and others have performed has shown repeatedly that alcohol-industry-funded charities mislead the public on the links between alcohol and cancer, particularly breast cancer.”.[70]
This episode reinforces why the industry uses Drinkaware as their CSR vehicle, as it is almost impossible for people, the media included, to see through their obfuscation and understand their true agenda. Indeed, Drinkaware Ireland has recently been shortlisted for an award in the education section of the 2026 annual Irish Healthcare Awards organised by the Irish Medical Times.[71]
Conclusion
Drinkaware is not an independent public health charity, it is the latest iteration of a two-decade alcohol industry project, inheriting both the funding model and the strategic purpose of its predecessor, MEAS. As a SAPRO and CSR organisation, its function is to position the industry as a credible partner in reducing alcohol harm while deflecting attention from the commercial drivers of that harm and stalling effective regulation, such as population-based alcohol reduction measures.
Drinkaware’s attempted infiltration of Irish schools, its self-declared role in health promotion, its workplace programmes, and its embeddedness in the industry’s marketing landscape demonstrates a consistent pattern of an industry-funded body seeking legitimacy in spaces where its presence is a conflict of interest. That conflict is because alcohol related industries have an overriding requirement to maximise profit for their shareholders. Therefore, they have a vested interest in ensuring that the knowledge of harm from alcohol is not generated, is not brought to the public and decision-makers’ attention and does not become the basis for effective public health policies since to do so would be to risk negatively impacting on the industry’s profits.[72]
Thankfully, where strong institutional leadership has been shown, as by the HSE, the Department of Health, and the Department of Education, Drinkaware has been excluded. However, where such leadership is absent, it persists.
Public health information on alcohol must be impartial, evidence-based, and wholly independent of an industry that profits from its sale. There should be no place for Drinkaware in Ireland’s schools, workplaces, health services, or public health policy.
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[69] https://www.irishtimes.com/business/agribusiness-and-food/simon-harris-in-lecturing-preening-interfering-mood-when-it-comes-to-alcohol-1.4135028
[70] https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/alcohol-industry-and-health-information-1.4138389
[71] Irish Healthcare Awards 2026
[72] https://alcoholireland.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Clarion-Call-.pdf