ESPAD Ireland 2024


ESPAD Ireland 2024 and ESPAD Ireland Supplementary Analysis Report were published 21 May 2025.

Click below

ESPAD Ireland 2024 Results from the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs

ESPAD Ireland 2024 Supplementary Analysis Report. A Closer Look at Teenager Substance Use and Gambling Through Family, Peer, and School Data

Click below for the Irish-language version of the Summary Results from ESPAD Europe 2024
Príomhthorthaí ó Thionscadal Suirbhé Scoileanna na hEorpa 2024 maidir le hAlcól agus Drugaí Eile (ESPAD)

ESPAD is the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD), a collaborative effort of independent research teams in more than 40 European countries and the largest cross-national research project on adolescent substance use in the world.
The overall aim of the project is to repeatedly collect comparable data on substance use among 15-16 year old students in as many European countries as possible. ESPAD 2024 collects data on school students born in 2008.

In Ireland, Professor Luke Clancy and Professor Joan Hanafin are the Principal Investigators.

Data collection for ESPAD Ireland 2024 was carried out in Spring 2024. We are very grateful to all of the students, teachers and school principals in the nationally representative stratified random sample of schools who participated in ESPAD Ireland 2024.
Results are available in the Main Report and Supplementary Reports linked above. 


Some Findings from ESPAD Ireland 2024

Tobacco Use
• ESPAD Ireland 2024 has reported the lowest ever figures for ever, current and daily smoking among 15 – 16-year-olds.
• 24% of students reported that they have tried smoking with 12% stating that they are current smokers and 2%  smoke daily.
• Smoking prevalence in girls is 13%, unchanged since 2015 and 2019.
​• The most common age for smoking initiation was 14 years.
 
E-cigarette Use
• 32% of respondents stated that the have tried e-cigarettes, with 16% stating that they are current users and 7% reporting daily use.
• 76% of e-cigarette users reported that they had never used traditional cigarettes when they first used e-cigarettes with only 0.6% reporting that they used them for smoking cessation purposes.
• The most common age for e-cigarette initiation was 14 years.
 
Alternative Tobacco and Nicotine Products Use
• 10% of students reported to have ever used moist snuff, with 7.6% reporting ever use of nicotine pouches.
• The use of nicotine pouches and moist snuff was significantly higher among male students than among female students. 
• The most common age for initiation of moist snuff and nicotine pouches was 15 years.
 
Alcohol Use
• 66% of 15-16 year olds surveyed had consumed alcohol in their lifetime, a decrease of 10% from the 2019 figure of 72.6%.
• 28% of students reported having been drunk in their lifetime as against 35.7% of students who had ever been drunk in their lifetime in 2019, showing a decrease of almost 22%.
• 35% had consumed alcohol in the past 30 days, a decrease of 15% from the 2019 figure of 40.8%.  
• 12% of students reported that they have been drunk in the last 30 days as against 16.1% in 2019, showing a significant decrease of over 25.5%.
 
Cannabis and Other Illicit Drugs and Substances
• There have been very significant decreases in both lifetime use of cannabis (19% in 2019 down to 12% in 2024) and current use (9% in 2019 to down to 5% in 2024).
• 11% of students reported to have tried cannabis, with 10% using it in the last 12 months and 5% having used it in the last 30 days.
• As regards other illicit drugs, inhalants were most frequently used at 6.3%, followed by synthetic cannabinoids 3.2% and alcohol with pills 3%.
• The most common age for cannabis first use was 14 years.

Gambling 
• 32% reported gambling for money in the last 12 months
• This is a significant increase on the one in four who reported gambling for money in 2019.
• There has been a noticeable increase in problem gambling, with 47% of those who gamble reporting at least one indicator of problem gambling such as going back another day to try to win back money they had lost gambling, or had felt like that they would like to stop betting but couldn’t.
• Problem gambling is particular marked for boys. 




ESPAD Ireland 2019

​​European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) 2019​
​The ESPAD Ireland Report 2019, based on a survey of 1967 students born in 2003, who were 15-16 years old when the survey was carried out in a sample of Irish schools in 2019, was launched in November 2020 by TFRI and Department of Health.  

It features information on students’ experience of, and perceptions about, a variety of substances, including: tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs, inhalants, pharmaceuticals and new psychoactive substances (NPS). Social media use, gaming and gambling are also covered.
  
This is the seventh data-collection wave conducted by the ESPAD project since 1995, with data collected every 4 years in more than 35 countries.
Click here for the full report: 
S Sunday, S Keogan, J Hanafin, L Clancy (2020). ESPAD 2019 Ireland: Results from the European Schools Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs in Ireland. Dublin: TFRI. ISBN: 978-0-9557528-4-1
Click here for the summary report:
S Sunday, S Keogan, J Hanafin, L Clancy (2020). ESPAD 2019 Ireland: Summary Results from the European Schools Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs in Ireland. Dublin: TFRI. ISBN: 978-0-9557528-5-8

The TobaccoFree Research Institute Ireland (TFRI) has been the Principal Investigator for ESPAD Ireland since 2014.
​  
Main findings of ESPAD Ireland 2019 (Press Release, 16th November 2020)

·      The decline in smoking has halted in Irish teens for the first time in 25 years (14%), and has significantly increased to 16% in boys while declining slightly to 13.6 in girls
Dramatic increase in e-cigarette use, especially among boys 39% have tried AND 16% are current users
·      Slight increase in drinking and heavy episodic ‘binge’ drinking
·      Almost 1 in 5 has tried cannabis and 1 in 10 is a current user
·      More than a third spend more than 6 hours on non-school days on social media
·      Boys (23%) more likely than girls (7%) to have gambled

Smoking Smoking remains a notable issue for adolescents. 32% of respondents had tried smoking and 14% were current smokers, with 5% smoking daily. The majority (63%) of students reported starting to smoke at age 14 or 15. Equally, the majority (61%) reported that it was easy to access cigarettes. Our trend analyses showed that, despite a reduction of over two thirds since 1995, more students reported smoking in 2019 than in 2015, and this was pronounced for boys.

E-Cigarettes Almost four in 10 students (39%) had tried e-cigarettes and almost one in 6 (16%) were current users, making both ever-use and current use of e-cigarettes higher than use of combustible cigarettes. Boys (46%) were more likely than girls (33%) to have tried e-cigarettes and also to be current users (22% vs 12%). Only 3% said that it was “to stop smoking cigarettes”. More than two-thirds of respondents (68%) had never smoked cigarettes, and only 9% smoked regularly when first using e-cigarette

Professor Luke Clancy, Director General of the TFRI said “this increase in smoking, which had been declining for 25 years, is major concern and a serious threat to Tobacco Free Ireland 2025   “We are currently examining the reasons for this increase”, he said, “including the role of e-cigarettes”. 

Alcohol Some 73% of respondents had tried alcohol and 41% were current users (previous 30 days), while 16% reported having been drunk in the previous 30 days. As in previous surveys, age 15 years (52%) was the most common age at which students first drank alcohol, followed by age 14 (28%). Since 1995, when Ireland first participated in ESPAD, there has been a significant reduction in alcohol consumption among students aged 15-16 years. However, our trend analyses in this wave indicate that, since 2015, there has been a slight increase in current alcohol use and also in heavy episodic drinking.

Cannabis Cannabis was the most-used illicit drug with almost one student in 5 (19%) having tried cannabis and almost one in 10 (9%) having used it in the previous 30 days. Boys were more likely than girls to be users, and girls were more likely to perceive risk in regular or occasional cannabis use. More boys (22%) than girls (13%) had also tried unsuccessfully to stop using cannabis. Access to cannabis was reported as fairly or very easy by 42% of students.

​Other substances (inhalants, cocaine, ecstasy)
Our trend analyses showed that, between 2015 and 2019, there were no changes in the use of cannabis, inhalants and tranquilizers. However, we observed a decrease in the use of illicit drugs other than cannabis. 

Gambling Boys much more likely to have gambled – betting on sports or animals was the most common gambling activity. The majority (84%) of respondents had not gambled in the previous 12 months. Gambling is a particularly gendered activity. More boys (23%) than girls (7%) reported that they had gambled in the previous 12 months. The Lie/Bet questionnaire, a two-question screening tool was used to evaluate problem gambling behaviour. Of those who had gambled in the previous 12 months (n=300), 26% reported that they had felt the need to bet more and more money, and 12% reported that they had to lie to people important to them about how much they gambled.

Internet and gaming activities  Among 15-16 year olds, more than a third spend more than 6 hours on social media on non-school days. 
More than a third of respondents (37%) spent 2-3 hours on social media on a typical school day, and even more (39%) spent more than 6 hours on social media on a typical non-school day. Significant gender differences were observed for non-school day internet use with girls (98%) spending more hours on social media than boys (96%) did. Problem internet use was assessed with three item statements and a majority of students either strongly agreed (26%) or partly agreed (37%) that they spend too much time on social media. Regarding gaming, during the previous 30 days. 44% spent some time playing games on a school day and 56% spent some time playing games on a typical non-school day. More boys (84%) than girls (29%) spent time playing games on a typical non-school day

Dr Joan Hanafin, Director of Social Research, TFRI said,  “Taken together, these findings provide strong evidence of the greater risk-taking among adolescent boys that has been identified in 30 years of research on men and masculinities. It is important that health education programmes take account of gender differences in substance use and of boys’ gambling patterns.”

Trends visible in Irish data
In the past 25 years, ESPAD surveys of 15-16-year olds in Ireland have reported major reductions in alcohol consumption, smoking and the use of many substances. The largest reductions have been in the use of illicit drugs which, fell by 69% and in cigarette smoking which fell by 66%. In the same period there has been a 41% decrease in alcohol consumption and a 30% reduction in heavy episodic [‘binge’] drinking. Across Europe, smoking and drinking among 15–16-year-old school students are showing signs of decline. The Irish study, carried out for the Department of Health, in collaboration with ESPAD Europe and the EU drugs agency (EMCDDA), is based on a 2019 survey of 1967 students born in 2003. This is the seventh data-collection wave conducted by the ESPAD project since 1995, with data collected every 4 years in more than 35 countries. 

The European ESPAD report can be found here.

ESPAD Ireland 2015
​​European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) 2015 Supplementary Analysis Report
A Closer Look at Teenager Substance Use and Gambling through Family, Peer, and School Data
 Supplementary Analysis Report
A Closer Look at Teenager Substance Use and Gambling through Family, Peer, and School Data

ESPAD is a collaborative effort of independent research teams in more than forty European countries and is the largest cross-national research project on adolescent substance use in the world. The overall project aim is to longitudinally collect comparable data on substance use among 15–16 year old students across Europe. The TFRI act as partners in the 2019 and 2015 ESPAD data administration.

The Irish ESPAD  Report 2015 can be found here.

The  International ESPAD report 2015  (using data from across Europe) can be found here.

More information on the European ESPAD project can be found here.
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Exerpt from ESPAD Ireland 2015

Download ESPAD Ireland 2015