DUBLIN: Ireland will impose tobacco-style health warning labels on alcohol as part of a sweeping package of restrictions intended to tackle what a WHO survey ranks as one of the world’s worst rates of binge drinking.

A bill that passed the Irish Parliament’s lower house on Wednesday limits alcohol advertising and requires that alcoholic products be separated from retail areas inside shops. It also demands health warnings, including about links to cancer, on bottles and at the point of sale — in shops and visitor centres attached to breweries and distilleries, which are tourist attractions in a country famed for its exports of stout, cider and whiskey. The measure is the first in Ireland to treat excessive alcohol consumption as a health problem. It includes a minimum sales price per unit of alcohol and bans the advertising of alcohol in publicly owned parks and at sports events catering mainly to children.

Ireland’s bill will be the first national law to require alcohol manufacturers to display warning labels about specific health risks. The labels must also specify for the first time the number of calories in a beverage and the total alcohol content in grams as opposed to merely the percentage of alcohol.

Patricia Callan, director of Alcohol Beverage Federation, said it supported the objectives of the legislation but believed it would harm an important Irish industry. Ireland is second only to Austria in rates of binge drinking, with 39% of Irish people 15 and older reporting heavy drinking in a one-month period, according to a 2014 survey by the WHO. Alcohol Action Ireland, that lobbied for the new law, said alcohol causes, on average, three deaths every day in Ireland and is a factor in half of all suicides.