Nearly one-in-three secondary school children in Galway city are drunk each month.
This is only one of the shocking statistics to emerge from a presentation by the Western Region Drug and Alcohol Taskforce (WRDAF ) on Junior Cert students in City Hall this week.
What makes the Planet Youth Report 2025 figures more alarming, is that they come from detailed and anonymised, mandatory surveys of 15- and 16-year-olds carried out every two years in each secondary school in the city, county and region.
Reported 30-day drunkenness is at 28 per cent throughout the 10 secondary schools and one Youthreach centre in Galway city. Pupils were surveyed last year, and the trend is up two points, from 26 per cent, in 2022.
City school pupils drinking in pubs has climbed substantially, up six per cent over two years to 15 per cent, while 21 per cent of teenagers reported most drinking happens in a friend’s house.
Perceived parental disapproval of their own children being drunk in Galway city has actually declined marginally to 56 per cent, while 15 per cent of teenagers reported they mostly get their booze from parents.
The report authors note that over the past eight years since teenage substance abuse was first tracked across Galway, Mayo and Roscommon, they see a strong correlation between parental tolerance for drunkenness, and risky behaviour by their children.
Put simply, children whose parents are more tolerant of drunkenness are four times more likely to get drunk, while teenagers who spend unsupervised time at a friend’s home are five times more likely to get drunk. Drinking stats are different from drunkenness. Use of alcohol at a young age may impair brain development, and increases likelihood of dependence in later life, the report notes.
Much more positively, more than three quarters of teenagers (77 per cent ) said they received parental support for personal matters, while more than half (53 per cent ) of city school pupils reported good mental health, up two per cent from last survey.
Self-reported good physical health is up 10 per cent for boys (82 per cent ) and four per cent for girls (69 per cent ). Categories of vaping, smoking, and cannabis use are all down marginally in Galway city.
Sleep deprivation
The report authors point out that a solid majority (58 per cent ) of Junior Cert students do not get eight hours of sleep each night, and that 23 per cent get so little sleep they will never catch up on several wellbeing factors.
Screen time has gone up every survey over eight years, and four-out-of-every-five teenagers report keeping a mobile phone in their bedroom. Pupils in one school in the West reported only 50 per cent of them were allowed phones upstairs – the lowest in the region, and a possible indicator of concerted strategy influencing behaviour.
Twenty per cent of boys and 31 per cent of girls in Galway city are in sleep deficit, substantially more than the regional average.
Unsupervised leisuretime correlates with higher levels of substance abuse; eg, teenagers who report regularly hanging out on streets are nine times more likely to smoke cannabis. However the report authors note that teenagers who report participation in supervised, structured activities exhibit noted protective factors for substance abuse, and improved physical and mental wellbeing.
More than 5,000 girls and boys were surveyed across the western region, including 832 teenagers in Galway city.
