The Catholic Primate Archbishop Seán Brady has said there must be an end to the link between sport and advertising alcohol, just as had occurred with sport and advertising tobacco.
"We need to break, once and for all, the link between sport and advertising alcohol," he said yesterday. "We need to do it with the same vigour and determination as the effort to remove advertising for tobacco from sports.
"The stakes are high. The quality of life of whole families and communities is what is at risk."
The archbishop also queried the ease of access to alcohol: "Have we made it too easy to become what the world says we are - a nation of heavy drinkers?"
Speaking of the 19th century Fr Theobald Mathew movement to reduce alcohol consumption, he recalled a historian saying that a rise in the price of alcohol at the time "didn't do any harm to his [ Fr Mathew's] campaign either".
The archbishop was speaking in Tallaght Community School yesterday at the launch of a DVD, Find the Balance: Dare to Dream, which encourages moderation in drinking. The DVD will be distributed to every post-primary school in Ireland.
Also attending the launch were the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, Charlie O'Connor TD, Billy Gogarty, mayor of South Dublin County Council and former TD Seán Crowe.
"Our culture of heavy drinking is the elephant in the room which we need to confront with collective and concerted action," Archbishop Brady said.
Addressing the politicians present, he said: "As public representatives, you have the heavy responsibility of dealing with the consequences of the abuse of alcohol in society both at a constituency level and at a legislative level."
He said the church would continue to help pastorally those with problems arising from alcohol abuse.
Archbishop Martin said he thought it was finally dawning on Irish society that we had an alcohol problem. "Yes, we always knew that there were people who had alcohol problems.
"What is dawning on us now is that we have a national alcohol problem deeply embedded in parts of our Irish culture."
For some excessive alcohol consumption was respectable, just as cocaine consumption for some seemed to be fashionable.
Society had become "far too tolerant of behaviours and attitudes to alcohol misuse", he said.