John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome my various colleagues in the anti-smoking struggle here today. This is a slam dunk and everybody who cares about health will support this Bill. We need to get it shepherded through as quickly as we can. All the arguments about smuggling and illegality are entirely bogus. I believe in my heart, and I believe the evidence is clear, that the tobacco industry directly and indirectly profits from the sale of illegally smuggled cigarettes, which are their own products. They also indirectly profit from the sale of illegally produced counterfeit cigarettes because anything which provides cheap cigarettes to impressionable young people who may have limited financial resources, which hooks them and addicts them to nicotine from tobacco smoking at an early age is in their long-term interests. The industry therefore does not really care about that; all it cares about is selling cigarettes. Anybody from the tobacco industry who espouses any position other than one which honestly says, "We want to increase sales of tobacco products" is lying. It is that simple.

We also need to foster the notion of ethical business. As the committee may know, I have put out an idea that we should pick some future date and say that after that time it will be illegal to do for-profit commerce in carcinogenic tobacco. In the short term we equally need to think of ways to incentivise individual businesses to get out of the tobacco supply chain. I do not mean to moralise about mom and pop corner shops. As I have pointed out at this committee before, my own father, Lord rest him, used to run a shop called "Jack's cigar store". He used to sell tobacco in Brooklyn, New York, many years ago. The culture is different now, however, and people understand that smoking causes cancer.

People in any shop, be it a local retail shop or garage, who are selling cigarettes are part of the problem and they need to understand that. The Government needs to think of clever ways of incentivising people to get out of that business, perhaps by having differential VAT rates on all products for shops that declare themselves to be tobacco-free zones. One would therefore pay a little less VAT if one went to a shop that committed itself to not having tobacco.

What about those nice pictures we have on the tobacco boxes now? Why not have a life-size poster of that mandatorily put up in every shop that sells tobacco, saying: "The proprietor of this shop sells these products"? A nice big picture of somebody with an advanced tumour, a gangrenous leg or an oxygen mask could be put in every shop. Let people know exactly what they are doing.

I also hope this Bill passes for another reason. Those who heard the news this morning will realise that the House of Lords - that second great upper Chamber of these islands - passed an amendment last night to the Child Welfare Act which would make it illegal to smoke in cars where children are present. That comes two years after that legislation was introduced here. For the past two years, it has been interminably glued up in the bureaucracy, so it needs to pass. As of today, 30 January 2014, this Government has passed one piece of smoking legislation, which is to make it easier to sell cheap cigarettes, although I know that is not the intent of the Minister or the Government. That legislation was forced on them by commercial courts and international precedence, but that is the scorecard as of today. It could be fixed quickly with the rapid passage of several pieces of legislation.