Ms Kathleen O'Meara:

On the point that tax increases on cigarettes hit the poorest sections the hardest, more than 70% of people want to quit smoking. As part of our longer proposal, we recommend that 20% of the increased tax take from the tax escalator and other measures be ring-fenced for cessation services. Such funding is badly needed because services are patchy, irregular and failing to reach the communities and people who really need them, namely, heavily addicted smokers. Smoking is a major health inequality issue and I concur with Professor Murray on the social justice issues. The burden of illness caused by smoking is carried disproportionately by disadvantaged communities and poor people. Women are dying younger because there is a higher death rate among women from lung cancer than from breast cancer. Unfortunately, most of these deaths are of women who had smoked since they were teenagers and who came from poor and, often, single parent communities. This is an issue of social justice. The tax increases are not the full picture; there is a public health duty to act. That is why we propose a measure which would bring significant revenue to the Exchequer, while at the same time ring-fencing 20% for smoking cessation measures, specifically to support those individuals and communities that most need help in giving up.