NI Minister proposes minimum unit pricing
NI Health Minister to recommend 65p MUP, continuing cross-border alcohol trade challenges for southern retailers
Print3 November 2025
Members with Alcohol licences who have businesses North of a line from Galway to Dublin will be all-too-familiar with the continued exodus of alcohol-purchasing shoppers from the Republic travelling into Northern Ireland to buy alcohol, particularly when shopping for celebratory and festive occasions, the CSNA reports.
There are many well-documented reports of car parks in Enniskillen and Newry being full of Southern registered cars and many of the off licences and supermarkets in Derry, Strabane and Armagh have recounted the significant volume of trade in alcohol they experienced ever since the then Minister of State in the Department of Health commenced the Order to implement an MUP of 10 cent per gram of alcohol.
Additional duties
The reason given by Mr Feighan for this action, which has gifted the UK and Northern Ireland Exchequers tens of millions of pounds in additional duties and taxes was his annoyance at the slow pace that the then Minister of Health, Edwin Poots (DUP) was taking in agreeing to a simultaneous move on both sides of the Border to initiating MUP.
The idea of any cross-border action did not appeal to the Minister, any more so than the idea of having an all-island Deposit Return Scheme did to their Environment Minister.
That hundreds of traders of the Devils Buttermilk were able to profit from these decisions was not, we would suggest, entirely immaterial either.
It would now appear that the new Minister of Health, Mike Nesbitt has accepted the advice from his officials and will recommend an MUP aligned to the new Scottish setting of 65 pence per Unit.
While this is the stated desire of the Minister, any concrete action leading to a Bill enabling such a measure has not been forthcoming so our members can certainly expect to see the cars and vans travelling North again this Christmas.
The CSNA note that a Parliamentary Question posed to our own Health Minister Jennifer Carroll Mac Neill relating to a review of our own MUP legislation, as provided for in the Public Health Alcohol Act elicited an answer that might suggest that an increase in our MUP may come quicker than a move from our Northern brethren.
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