CSNA To Meet With Department of Health
Following the intervention by the ombudsman, CSNA is pleased to inform members that the Department of Health are meeting with CSNA to discuss upcoming legislation and tobacco smuggling as it affects retailers. An agenda has been forwarded to Minister Colm Burke (Minister of State with responsibility for Public Health, Wellbeing and the National Drugs) in which the Association is keen to speak about tobacco licensing, duty free and duty paid products, upcoming changes to age restriction and vaping.
New Guidance from Department/HSE on Public Health (Alcohol) Act Regarding Labelling
CSNA is also raising awareness among members of the many changes that have been brought in over the past number of years following the enactment and subsequent sequential Commencements of different Sections of the Act.
‘The Minister recently indicated his intention to commence Section 19 which deals with a new legal requirement to require all intoxicating liquor sold in our stores to have labels affixed that set out a number of statements relating to the dangers of consumption , links to cancer, details of a HSE website and the quantity of grams of alcohol coupled with the energy values in kilojoules and kilocalories contained in the product’ wrote Vinent Jennings.
‘As one can imagine, such specific information being applied to a can or bottle will require a lot of extra tooling and printing for manufacturers and bottlers, extra work that will, if it is actually carried out, will add to the wholesale costs of the goods.
‘There would be very real concerns that in many instances, European producers will baulk at the idea of putting these labels onto their products and will no longer supply to the Irish market.
‘Another concern would be a supplier or distributor offering to sell the products into an Irish market without labels on the “understanding” that a retailer would source and affix the labels.
‘THIS WOULD BE VERY DANGEROUS. The offence is when the retailer sells to the public, so a supplier gets off scot-free!’
