Lennard Ramone

June 7, 2021, was a remarkable day in Irish history. It was the day the pubs reopened after having been closed for 164 days, a period of closure never before experienced in the history of the nation.  We all know the reason for this, ofcourse- the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent lacklustre response from our government.  Ireland is a small island in the middle of an ocean. We have 3 international airports and 2 ferry ports. We should have done the same as New Zealand where, as it happens, my cousin lives. When it emerged that this was not some isolated incident in South East Asia, the New Zealand government made every Kiwi who was abroad come home immediately, kicked every non-resident out of the country and then basically locked up the country. They had 4 or 5 weeks of what in Ireland was Level 5 lockdown, then 3 weeks of Level 3 lockdown, and then.. life went back to normal.  You could go to the pub, go watch a movie, there were crowds at the rugby, the works. Okay, you couldn’t

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the introduction of minimum unit pricing for alcohol in Ireland. The government is considering introducing this as a measure to combat problem drinking. I actually support this idea, but also have some side notes.  I’ve had a number of people sending me questions about this and also a number of people making jokes about me having to get a second job when this happens. These people don’t understand how this works and that these measures have no impact on me personally.  Let me explain.  This system is already in place in Scotland. In Scotland, you calculate the number of units in a drink as follows:  Serving size in litres x ABV. So if you have a 5% beer in a 500ml/0.5 liter can, this can contains 0.5x5= 2.5 units.  A bottle of wine at 14% is 0.7x14=9.8 units and so on.  The government then sets a minimum price per unit and that is then minimum price that is has to retail for. So let’s say that the unit price is 60 pence, that would mean that ou