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For many years Ireland has been internationally recognised as a nation who enjoy the odd tipple. You only have to browse through the various mementos on sale in such shops as Mary’s on O’Connell St, or O’Carrolls on Grafton St, to understand why this image of a boozy nation is so renound worldwide. We intentionally export the jovial image of the drunken leprechaun or of the old man sitting by the fire in his local nursing a pint of Guinness by the fire, yet beneath this humorous façade lies a worrying social phenomenon. In the past decade alone there has been a significant increase in the alcohol consumption of this country whilst the figures for our European counterparts, like France, have reportedly dropped by a third. Ireland and Britain remain the only western countries where there has been an increase in the amount of alcohol consumed. A quarter of all hospital admissions in this country are drink related and over a half of the casualty admissions are for the same reason. At three point five billion euros, we spend more on drink than we do on the health service. According to a recent survey, Irish teens are the biggest binge drinkers in the European Union. Binge drinking is defined as “the consumption of five or