Dr. Matthew Sadlier:

I will address the points raised in order. First, what the IMO would call for in the proposed legislation is that Ireland would not necessarily merely opt for the minimum percentage of the package mentioned in the European directive and that we would increase, to 75% rather than 65%, the percentage of the package containing the health warning. That would be one change to the proposed legislation, to answer Deputy Kelleher's question, that we see as a positive move.

In response to Deputy Ó Caoláin's questions, there is strong evidence. If the packaging was a medication, it would probably be licensed to treat the conditions given the beneficial effect it would have. There is also evidence from the psychological literature to show that human beings will respond more emotively and viscerally to visual images than to words. Human beings seem to be primed towards biologically directed images. It is quite easy to understand how. Images of diseased organs, etc., will cause a stronger visceral response and a reaction of disgust in more people than will clinical words. Where packaging contains warnings that smoking contains all these fancy chemical names, to a large number of the population that could be a vitamin or something toxic. At that level, people do not necessarily know.

This is a fight that will have to be fought on a number of different fronts. The packaging is certainly an important element of it. My organisation has called in the past for a ban on smoking in the vicinity of playgrounds. It would be sensible if there were restrictions or guidelines on the representation of smoking in the media. If a celebrity is seen coming out of a nightclub in a particular dress, the shop that sells it will have a run on its products. The thrust of policies should involve a restriction on displaying celebrities or persons of prominence smoking in newspapers.