Curtains for demon drink on supermarket shelves

The nanny state is alive and well, clearly determined to show that the citizens are utterly incapable of even the remotest modicum of self-discipline.

How else could you explain the insane plan to put alcohol behind some sort of a curtain in supermarkets – as though out of sight would someone mean out of mind?

How many stopped smoking because the same geniuses decided that cigarettes would vanish from the collective consciousness if they were simply moved under the counter?

Did they think that the added difficulty of having to go to a bar with your money and then exchange it for a token would prove so complex that those in need of a nicotine fix would prefer to give up?

That latest nanny state edict is the Public Health (Alcohol) Bill, which would force shops that sell household goods and other items to put up “structural separations” to hide alcohol from view.

The Department of Health had proposed curtains or shutters. It also says that alcohol cannot be sold in a part of such shops which people would have to pass to buy non-alcoholic products.

This is presumably because there’s an ever-present danger that we’d go into a supermarket looking for soap and instead we’d come out with cases of Smirnoff.

We cannot be trusted to know our own minds; you only have to put drink into our peripheral vision and we’re straight into it like Oliver Reed at a free bar.

It’s a wonder they don’t go the whole hog and insist that all public houses be painted black, with no signage that might indicate the dens of iniquity that lies behind the uniformly plain doors.

After all, a fella could be coming into town for an ice cream – but then he spots a pub and three weeks later he’s still sitting there, having forgotten his own name as well as why he came into town in the first place.

You cannot be too careful with these things – if you allow people to start thinking for themselves, you’ve no idea where it will all end.

So putting drink behind curtains is an excellent initiative, except for one thing – from the moment we were born we always wondered what was behind the curtain and as sure as eggs (even if we’re not looking for eggs) we’ll be drawn to a big curtain like flies to sticky paper.

Because if there’s one other inalienable attribute possessed by us Irish, it’s the fact that the one way you can guarantee we will do something is to tell us not to do it.

They might as well put up a sign that says ‘free drink’ because hiding it behind a curtain will probably lead to an upsurge in sales instead of the downturn they’re hoping for.

To read Dave’s column in full, please see this weeks edition of the Connacht Tribune.