Irish government implements new laws for the advertising of alcohol products. Credit: Adam Jaime on Unsplash.

The Irish government has implemented new laws on the advertising of alcohol products in the country.

Under the laws, alcoholic beverage companies will not be able to post advertisements for their products near schools or local authority playgrounds.

Advertisements on public service vehicles, public transport stops or stations, as well as within 200m of school or a crèche, are also barred under the law.

The ban on advertising is also implemented in cinemas, with an exception for films with an 18 classification.

The ban will also apply to children’s clothing that promotes alcohol.

Ireland Health Minister Simon Harris said: “Studies report consistently that exposure to alcohol advertising is associated with an increased likelihood that children will start to drink or will drink greater quantities if they already do. These measures aim to change that situation in Ireland and to remove alcohol advertising from the day-to-day lives of our children.

“We still have a lot of work to do in this area. An analysis of data from the Global Burden of Disease Study published in March 2019 showed that Ireland has the third-highest levels of adolescent binge drinking in the world at 61% for females and 58.8% for males.

“Reports in October this year identified an 80% increase in 2018 in the number of children under-16 admitted to Irish hospitals because of alcohol intoxication. 36 children in 2018 compared to 20 such cases in 2017.”