By constantly pandering to the vintners, by allowing publicans in power to make rules without declaring conflict of interest, and by never incentivising the opening of any pub-alternatives for social gatherings, we've trained people to expect that social gathering == booze. https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1313790225190195201

People need *somewhere* to gather with their friends, somewhere to socialise, and by and large the only place we provide for that is a pub. We let the vintners groups push everyone around, we let drink companies slap a logo on everything, and then we demonise people for drinking.

It is *impossible* to find somewhere to gather in Dublin city centre that is not a pub after about 6pm. What cafes there were have closed up over the years, and those left close too early to be a real pub alternative.

When I was in college, I commuted to Maynooth from Tallaght. So I drove everywhere, and most of my friends did too. We were always looking for somewhere to sit around for a while after training, have some tea or whatever, and chat.

It was really hard to find somewhere.

Places closed early, bars that might serve you a coffee with your pub lunch shut off the coffee machine at night and gave you absolutely filthy looks or an outright "no" if you ordered tea or coffee at night. We could sit in a hotel lobby if we were lucky, sometimes.

People need somewhere to socialise, and it's not unreasonable to want somewhere that booze isn't the central point.

Not that I don't love a G&T on occasion, but sometimes, I actually want a big pot of tea, maybe some cake too.

And also, don't think I'm missing the absolute classist shite in that comment either.

Notice he says "slabs of cans" and not "cases of wine"? That's because it's classy and refined to buy cases of wine, don't ya know? But not lots of cans. Those are for poor people.

Having some cans with your mates is not inherently less good than your fancy "after dinner aperitif" just because you've used a french word to describe it, or because your aperitif comes from a sherry bottle instead of a stella bottle.

Publicans and vintners groups and alcohol companies spend *millions* convincing us that socialising and a fun time are synonymous with alcohol. They do not now suddenly care about our mental or physical health. They just care that we're not in their pub.

If any government minister *actually* wants to change the game and change Ireland's relationship with alcohol, closing the off license earlier or banning the sale of alcohol during lockdowns is just absolutely not the way to do it.

What could they do? Well, they could change advertising and sponsorship rules so that I don't have to automatically see a pint of guinness every time I look at a rugby ball, for example.

They could incentivise non-booze alternatives, as suggested here: https://twitter.com/MichelleHealy_1/status/1313814100221321217

They could zone places for non-alcohol social spaces, late opening cafes, etc. Tax breaks or subsidies for these kind of places.

And they can finance it all with all of the duty they collect on the alcohol they publicly judge us for drinking.

And they could stop trying to plamas us by saying they're just worried about our health when they're really just worried about their pockets, especially not when it is so insultingly obvious.