Mr. Chris Fitzgerald:

It does, but that is the figure. It is reflected as a percentage of health spending. The total cost to individual member states would need to reflect substitution payments, for example, people in receipt of social welfare when they are off sick from work, a loss in productivity and premature death. These must be factored in to increase the figure, but the pure correlation between health spending in overall terms and health spending on tobacco-related conditions is of that order. It may seem surprising, although the figures are still enormous.

A number of comments were made on the illicit trade. Enforcement is a matter for Revenue and the Garda. We are working with them. Revenue is conscious of the issue and recently introduced a new initiative. The directive attempts to address the illicit trade through the tracking and tracing provisions, but the existence of the trade and the associated criminality cannot be denied.

I believe it was Deputy Naughten who asked what we knew about the effect of the ban on ten packs. Since the introduction of the ban on the sale of packs of fewer than 20 cigarettes, our current figures for the ten year old to 17 year old age group have fallen from 21.2% to 12%. It is difficult to know whether all of this decrease can be attributed to the elimination of ten packs, but we all know anecdotally that young children would not have the price of 20 packs. The market for loose cigarettes and small quantities of cigarettes was, to a large extent, aimed at young people. We believe that we got something wrong.

The Commission's research referred to evidence of a movement within the industry to introduce flavours of all sorts to make tobacco more palatable and attractive and, therefore, to initiate young people into smoking. There is no doubt about it. There is every possible flavour, including vanilla. One must assume that the only function of this is to make the product more palatable. When introducing the directive, former Commissioner Borg stated that his objective was to make tobacco products taste like tobacco products, which was a good way of describing it. Clearly, the industry is trying to make the product more palatable and, therefore, more acceptable to young people.

We have also seen the emergence on the market of lipstick-type boxes of cigarettes, which are usually pink in colour and look like lipsticks or other cosmetics. One must assume that these are not aimed at people of my age or disposition. I will leave it to members' imaginations to decide who the targets are. Slim cigarettes are another development along the same lines. A great deal of study has shown evidence of a subliminal association between slim cigarettes and slimness and sophistication via the use of catwalk models and so on in their marketing.

The directive is trying to tackle these issues. From a public health point of view, its primary function is to attack the initiation of young people into smoking.