Ms Amy Maher:

As a group that focuses much of its work on prevention, we feel that the introduction of plain packaging is an important step towards preventing young people from ever starting to smoke. By introducing this legislation, we are protecting future generations by changing young people's attitudes to smoking so that it will no longer be what I may term "the norm".

When we started to consider making a submission, we organised focus group discussions with young people who were both smokers and non-smokers. We wanted to find out what young people felt about the idea of plain packaging, whether it would impact on their decision to smoke and whether they placed much importance on smoking as an image factor. They discussed how "purple skins" or "flavoured skins" were "class" and mentioned a friend who, while not a smoker, had brought home pink-coloured cigarettes from holidays abroad because she wanted to have them at a disco to offer to people. This highlighted to us the importance young people place on how things look and that the appearance of cigarettes plays a huge role in young people smoking.

Young people discussed the health implications for them from smoking. Some experienced difficulties with their teeth and lungs and their ability to engage in physical activities and sports. They expressed that they would not like to see their younger siblings smoking and felt that plain packaging would have a significant impact on preventing young people from ever starting to smoke.

We feel that young people should have a right to be protected from the marketing of a highly addictive and seriously harmful product. Plain packaging is one way we can do this. By making smoking less appealing and health warnings more effective, the misguided opinion young people have that smoking is "cool" or "class" will be changed, stopping them from smoking in future.

We recommend that the public health (standardised packaging of tobacco) Bill be introduced as a matter of urgency; that members of the committee appreciate that plain packaging seeks to stop young people from taking up smoking and that branding cigarettes undermines the work of our group; that the Bill take account of the EU product directive on flavoured and coloured cigarettes; that the legislation seek to de-normalise smoking further and be considered a public health measure; and that the Bill take into account the effect of branding on young people and the desire of young people to be seen with a "cool" product such as cigarettes.

We thank the committee for the opportunity to attend and share our group's views today. We hope that members take into consideration our recommendations and we welcome whatever questions they have for us.