Diageo Country Manager for Ireland David Smith has decided to step down from the Board of the Campaign to Stop Out of Control Drinking.
Sport for Business is a supporter of the campaign and remains proud to be playing a part in opening up a debate around alcohol in this country among parents, coaches, players, fans and anyone involved in our society in general, and through sport in particular.
So far 12,000 people have had their say and our next public engagement will proceed in Cork tomorrow, Thursday, March 26th.
With the best will in the world such a strong public engagement as has taken place could not have happened without backing from the private sector.
That point is proven in reality by the ineffectiveness of campaigns around the culture of drink by those who have tried from within a variety of publicly funded organisations and ill funded charitable or personal initiatives over the past two decades.
They haven’t been wrong, just haven’t had the reach that this campaign can have or that the Road Safety Authority had in changing the stigma around not wearing a seat belt.
The point has though been missing from some of the commentary in media and medical circles that while in the main was well intentioned, has itself been damaged only being willing to see the mechanics and not the end result.
The Campaign will continue and it’s report will be published this Summer. Perhaps it will be dismissed by those who feel they know best but haven’t been willing to share in such a public arena, or perhaps it will be accepted for what it will be, an honest look at how we interact with drink, through the eyes of those who have been damaged by it, those who enjoy it and those who have an opinion on how we might change the stereotype of the drunken Irish.
Here is the statement issued by the Board today:
David Smith’s carefully considered decision to leave the Board of our campaign is yet another assertion of his determination that this Board will act in an entirely independent way, as we have from the start. It is also a reiteration of our total independence to produce a national debate, and a strategy that will seek to change the drinking culture within Ireland. Finally, it is an opportunity for reasonable and fair-minded people to reassess any initial scepticism about the motives of this campaign.
As it is, from the outset of the campaign the vast majority of people with whom we have been in contact have accepted both the campaign’s goal to change Ireland’s national drinking culture and the determination of the Board to try to make an honest contribution to a necessary and long-overdue debate. The reality is that despite all the reports, despite all the public health analysis, despite all the experts, out of control drinking has got worse in Ireland. Ironically, the controversy that has affected part of our efforts has started more conversations about this topic than we’ve had in years.
But the campaign has already achieved more than that. Already over 12,000 people have voluntarily joined us, hundreds have joined our workshops around the country and hundreds more people have taken the time to make submissions to the campaign. The campaign board is committed to honouring the public’s support through the publication, this summer, of a long-term plan that will help to make excessive drinking socially unacceptable in Irish society. We respect their hopes for a healthier society and we encourage others to take the opportunity to shape our report that aims to create the blueprint for a legacy of a healthier society for both current and future generations.
We will deliver our plan this summer and welcome that Diageo will continue to fund the campaign during this time, while playing no further part on the board itself.
For the avoidance of doubt, we intend our plan and all our work to be complementary to the range of other initiatives that exist to address the consumption of alcohol in society. We have already, for example, written to the Health Committee of the Oireachtas setting out our unanimous support for the General Scheme of the Public Health (Alcohol) Bill 2015 that is currently before the Oireachtas.
We encourage others to join with us, to challenge us in open debate, and to get stuck in to a determined campaign to stop out of control drinking in Ireland.
