John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank my colleagues and sundry other allies for attending this meeting. It was great to hear their presentations. It is recognised there are disparities in smoking across the socio-educational spectrum. Does Dr. Edward McKone believe there are other factors which determine the disparity of the incidence of lung disease across social groups? How do we stack up in international comparisons in terms of the number of respiratory consultants per head of population? I would guess we are we somewhat worse than the UK and disastrously worse than other places in the world, considering Britain and Ireland have disastrously low levels of specialists in most specialities.

It is frequently suggested that asthma is a disease where the advances in knowledge and treatment have not necessarily percolated to the front lines of treatments and that substantial further improvements could be made if doctors were to follow the best existing practice and best medications. What is the Asthma Society of Ireland's take on this? Are we doing okay on that?

Does Cystic Fibrosis Ireland believe an adequate number of beds have been built in the cystic fibrosis unit in St. Vincent's to comply with international guidelines for beds per sufferer in the population? All the groups harbour under somewhat of an extra burden in that people believe lung disease is caused by smoking and, therefore, it is the fault of smokers who contract such diseases. It is a far more subtle and complex problem than that, however. Notwithstanding the fact that a significant part of lung disease is not related to smoking, if we were to have a complete disappearance of smoking as a habit, what would be the impact on the demand for respiratory services? Saying that, I am asking everyone to check the website, www.sos2030.com, which we set up recently with the ambitious plan to get EU governments, the European Commission, etc., to buy into the idea that we will pick a date in the future which from thereafter it will not be legal to do for-profit commerce in tobacco.