This amounted to 20 per cent of men and 8.7 per cent of women, ONA said.
Three-and-a-half million people were binge drinkers who drank to get drunk and 750,000 were harmful drinkers, that is those who caused damage to their health by their consumption of alcohol, either physically or mentally, or both.
Although many values in the report returned to pre-pandemic levels, ONA said, those were very high and the drops, registered almost all for men and not for women, are far from the sustainable health goals of the United Nations Agenda 2030.
Of the at-risk drinkers, there is special concern for young people, around 1,370,000 of those between the ages of 11 and 25, of whom 620,000 are underage, the report said.
At risk women drinkers, who number some 2.5 million, up on 2014, with peaks of 29 per cent between the ages of 16 and 17, are also concerning, said ONA.
As are the 2.6 million at-risk elderly drinkers, of whom one in 10 over 65s drink excessively on a daily basis, consuming alcohol outside dining times.
ANSA
