The Draft Regulations relate to alcohol products.

Notification of Draft Regulations Under Section 12 of the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018

In accordance with Directive (EU) 2015/1535, Ireland notified the European Commission of the draft Public Health (Alcohol) Bill 2015 on 27 January 2016 and amendments to the Bill were notified on 3 February 2018. In relation to the proposals on labelling of alcohol products (section 12 of the Bill) the Commission’s response on 2 May 2018 stated that it could not assess the draft measure without more detailed information in relation to its modalities, i.e. the regulations which would provide the detail on how the requirement would operate. The draft regulations attached with this submission are those modalities.

Under section 12 of the Act labels on alcohol products must contain:

i. A warning to inform people of the danger of alcohol consumption.
ii. A warning to inform people of the danger of alcohol consumption when pregnant.
iii. A warning to inform people of the direct link between alcohol and fatal cancers.
iv. The quantity of grams of alcohol contained in the product.
v. The number of calories contained in the alcohol product.
vi. A link to a health website which gives information on alcohol and related harms.

In addition, section 12 provides that those selling alcohol in on-licenced premises will be required to display a notice containing the same health warnings, a link to the public health website and an indication to the customer that the alcohol and calorie content of alcohol products for all ‘poured drinks’ is available in a document on request.

The draft regulations provide the detail for the obligation under section 12. In relation to the requirements for health warnings, the requirement under 12(i) to provide for a warning to inform people of the danger of alcohol consumption has been specified as a warning on the risk of liver disease. In addition, the requirement for a pregnancy warning under 12(ii) can be fulfilled through using a specified pictogram. The health website requiredat 12(vi) is www.askaboutalcohol.ie.

The draft regulations also provide that for alcohol products which have a small surface area the health warnings and information can be of a smaller size or a flag label can be used.

Finally, the regulations specify that websites which sell alcohol products must display the same information as would be available to the consumer in a physical shop so that the online consumer has all the information at the point of purchase.