Mr. Vincent Jennings:

I am saying it is extraordinary that €21 million from the National Pensions Reserve Fund has been invested in tobacco companies. Norway has stipulated 60 different companies, a number of which are tobacco firms, in which it will not invest money from its oil industry. It is about time the Department of Finance was contacted and informed that we do not want our money invested in tobacco companies. There is a need for ethical investment. All of this is part of the denormalisation process. The difficulty with denormalisation is that we are correctly and, it might be stated, slavishly using the template provided under the framework convention. We are ticking all of the boxes but not seeking to do anything outside of this. The framework suggests there must be a minimum age. We have, correctly, taken steps in that regard and introduced an age limit of 18 years. As a result of the fact that the framework does not state we should prevent people from providing tobacco for youngsters, we have done nothing in this regard. Nobody thinks, in the context of the policy review, that banning this type of behaviour would be a good idea. The policy review group's report provides a very good and well considered model. However, the group did nothing outside of this and did not consider ethical investment, proxy purchasing or the fact that the market for this product in Ireland is so unique. The latter is the case because the Finance Acts introduced by those in government have made people in the retail trade slaves to the tobacco industry.