THERE WILL NO longer be discounted alcohol available to purchase in shops by using a loyalty card, as the health minister has progressed legislation to sever these deals.<\/p>\n
The amended legislation is due to come into effect in 18 months\u2019 time, in March 2028.<\/p>\n
For years, many supermarkets in Ireland have offered various alcohol available at a cheaper price if a loyalty card is used. Tesco Clubcard is one popular example whereby consumers can knock a few euros off a bottle of wine at checkout.<\/p>\n
This will be no more once the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018 (Sale and Supply of Alcohol Products) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 comes into force.<\/p>\n
Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has moved to disallow price reductions or discounts awarded in respect of an alcohol product on the basis of possessing a loyalty card or membership of a loyalty scheme or club.<\/p>\n
Alcohol Action Ireland praised the amendment.<\/p>\n
Its chief executive Sheila Gilheany said the amendment is a \u201cwelcome boost\u201d for public health.<\/p>\n
An existing section of the legislation, Section 23, bans specific types of alcohol promotions including using or earning bonus points when buying alcohol. This was introduced in January 2023.<\/p>\n
Gilheany said some supermarkets \u201cgot round this\u201d by offering discounts on alcohol through loyalty cards or schemes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe appreciate that the Minister of Health has acted to address the issue of supermarket club schemes. This will have some impact but even more could be achieved,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Have a view on this story? Send your letter to the editor, for publication, by email to letters@thejournal.ie<\/a>. Find out more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THERE WILL NO longer be discounted alcohol available to purchase in shops by using a loyalty card, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[11313,72,61,60,1421,209380,2361,15348],"class_list":["post-633791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-alcohol","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jennifer-carroll-macneill","tag-loyalty-cards","tag-public-health","tag-supermarkets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}