Ms Norma Cronin:

I will respond to Deputy McLellan's question about whether it is addiction or packaging that keeps people smoking and legal drugs not having branding. I have a lot of experience of dealing with people with the addiction and helping smokers to quit. The Deputy is probably right in that the branding and glamorisation of the packs, along with peer influence and whether their parents smoke, start them smoking. However, the addiction takes hold very quickly. We know nicotine reaches the brain in seven seconds. It is a very fast delivery system. Most smokers are not smoking out of choice. We have heard from previous speakers that almost 80% of smokers want to quit. I do not think the branding is crucially important.

We know from other research that people underestimate the health effects of smoking. They might all know about lung cancer but research conducted by the Irish Cancer Society and the HSE has shown that people do not know that it causes age-related macular degeneration - blindness in common language. They know about gangrene but when they see the image, they do not know about its effects on oral health. They do not know about mouth, head and neck cancer or that 30% of all cancers are caused by smoking. It is crucially important that this measure comes into effect.

The other question related to whether we are doing enough to get the message across. Senator Burke is not here but I think that was in respect of-----