'First it was the fags, now it's the drink," came the murmur from the street corners outside Ireland's pubs this week. With smoking banned from bars, drinkers are braced for a different government crackdown after statistics revealed a country killing itself with alcohol.
Ireland, which so bitterly denied the 50s racist stereotype of the drunken emigrant drowning his sorrows in a north London pub, now faces the fallout from reckless drinking spurred by its affluent Celtic Tiger society.
A government taskforce reported this month that Ireland had the highest rate of binge drinking in Europe. Dealing with the resulting deaths, road accidents, crime and lost working hours is costing the state €2.65bn (£1.8bn) a year.
To make matters worse, doctors in the north-east of the country painted a worrying portrait of casualty units this week in which they said admissions of drunks had risen by 80% in five years. One in four people arriving at accident and emergency wards was inebriated, and some had suffered head injuries or were unconscious. The ages of these admissions ranged from 10 to more than 70. In the last five years, 14 people in the north-east died in casualty wards from acute alcohol intoxication.
Once, boozy British stag parties spilling on to the streets of Dublin's Temple Bar were derided by locals. Now the Irish have overtaken what one columnist called the "mad Brits" in the drinking stakes.
Binge drinking is the norm among young Irish men, who drink to excess on 60% of their nights out. Irish men are three times more likely than the European average to get into a drunken fight.
The number of off-licences selling spirits has doubled in the last 10 years and those selling wine have risen more than six times. With alcohol consumption rising almost 50% in the last decade, the Irish now spend €6bn on alcohol each year, drinking more per capita than any European country except Luxembourg.
As the vast super-pubs take over from the tight wooden snugs of traditional bars, commentators have been soul-searching. Fintan O'Toole, in the Irish Times, said the "live fast, die young culture" of a newly affluent nation had played its part. Ireland's relationship with drink had been problematic for some time, he said, although the state swept it under the carpet. John Waters wrote of a spiritual problem, the "God-shaped hole in our lives".
The state and police are still considering how to respond. Yesterday police stepped in to try to stop late licences for clubs in Dublin. Bertie Ahern, the taoiseach, said he was not a "spoilsport" but making alcohol available to young people at five or six in the morning was not a good idea.
Joe Barry, a senior lecturer in public health at Trinity College Dublin, said the situation was at crisis point. People who were not classed as alcoholics were dying from drink.
In the decade to 2002, Ireland had more than 14,000 alcohol-related deaths. This figure does not include road deaths that may be linked to drink or the 15 deaths by drowning a month. Doctors say a rise in suicide rates, particularly among men, could also be linked to a rise in binge drinking.
Dr Barry said: "There are cultural issues that all of us have to address. Every child in Ireland is bombarded with alcohol advertising on the TV, at football and hurling matches. There should be some sort of watershed ban. We haven't always handled affluence well in this country. We have to say to people, think of other things to spend your money on."
The government's taskforce on alcohol made 78 recommendations last week, which the department of health is to consider. They include limiting the number of shops selling alcohol, introducing ID cards and labelling drinks with health warnings, ingredients and calories. The taskforce also said gaelic sports should try to find sponsors other than drinks companies.
The government is drafting legislation to limit the content of alcohol adverts and reduce children's exposure to them. The drinks industry spent more than €43m on advertising in 2002, double the spend for 2000.
But the recommendations to increase tax on alcohol have sparked opposition from Fine Gael and the drinks industry. It says Ireland has the highest tax and excise on drink in Europe. A tax rise on spirits in 2003 resulted in a drop in consumption for the first time in 16 years.
The taskforce also asked why soft drinks on sale in Irish bars are so expensive compared with alcohol.
The government has instituted penalties on landlords who serve drunk customers. It has banned happy-hour promotions and reduced opening hours.
Mature Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society, a drinks industry group, said the government's alcohol policy, so far, had been fragmented and under-resourced. Community workers were adamant that changes must be made to a society which one said was "in love with its own drunken image".
