Mr. Gavin Maguire:

I thank members of the joint committee for the invitation and the opportunity to address them today. We sent in a submission last week, as well as a short opening statement through which I now will bring members. The HSE strongly supports this Bill as another important step in the de-normalisation of tobacco smoking in Ireland. One in every two smokers dies of smoking-related illnesses in Ireland. These illnesses and deaths are preventable. Improving health and well-being is one of four pillars of reform outlined in Future Health, the government's health reform programme for the Health Service Executive, HSE. The programme involves a shift in policy and practice away from simply treating sick people to keeping people healthy and well. The HSE's actions in respect of tobacco control include tobacco-free campuses, targeted health promotion campaigns, the HSE QUIT campaign, brief intervention training, research and enforcement of the Public Health (Tobacco) Acts and tobacco control legislation.

The elimination of one form of advertising by tobacco companies - the use of attractive, glossy and sometimes cosmetic-like packaging designed to appeal to young people - is a hugely important step. The tobacco industry has invested heavily in pack design to communicate to this specific group. The evidence strongly suggests that standardised packaging will reduce the appeal of packaging and of smoking in general. Research further suggests that standardised packaging will go some way towards reducing consumer misperceptions regarding product harm, particularly the perception that one brand of tobacco is less harmful than another, and will help to make the legally required health warnings more visible. Tobacco companies have introduced extensive cigarette pack innovations in recent years. The introductions of these new types of package have posed serious challenges to the enforcement of current tobacco control legislation for the HSE. The clear stipulation of the pack features in this Bill will make enforcement much easier. The restrictions on the wrappers of tobacco products such as cigarettes and roll-your-owns will remove the current trend of highlighting lower pack price across the top of the product, suggesting to the customer that they are selling them at a reduced price and thus acting as a sales promotion device.

We welcome the inclusion in the Bill of the provision whereby the offence is committed by the manufacturer and the distributor, as well as the retailer. In many incidences, the supplier stocks the machine in the shop or wherever and the retailer may not look at the product packaging until it is requested by the customer. Therefore the onus must be on the retailer, the manufacturer and the supplier to ensure the product complies with the legislation. Fines and penalties must be sufficient to deter the tobacco companies from non-compliance with the law and we therefore welcome the levels of fines and penalties envisaged in the Bill. We also welcome the fact that, upon conviction, the court shall order the person to pay the costs and expenses associated with the inspections and the institution of legal proceedings.

Roll-your-own tobacco products are a growing segment of the industry. The increase in the pouch size to 20g per unit pack is important in the restriction of access to tobacco products by young persons and lower socioeconomic groups. We suggest that an additional requirement for consideration should be standardisation of the pack size. This would make packaging for slims or smaller packs less attractive to the customer. Restrictions on the size of tobacco packaging are currently not captured under this Bill, although they are included in the Australian legislation. It would also prevent tobacco companies from making tobacco packs smaller, thus reducing the size of the required health warning, or indeed larger with the aim of increasing the size of the brand name or business or company name that appears on the pack. We also suggest that improved powers of enforcement for the environmental health services within the HSE may be necessary for seizing, removing and detaining non-confined products, as well as payment by the offender for destruction.