Eamonn Maloney (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief. I have read the submissions by the tobacco industry and listened carefully, as others have done this morning, to their presentations. I will limit myself to three points. The message coming from the tobacco industry is an attempt to get some high ground on the issue by saying that it is not targeting children. That message has been repeated here, using different language. The industry representatives say that is not where the new consumers are and that they are not enticing children to smoke.

Someone said it was not a good thing for children to smoke. Does that imply that it is a good thing for adults to smoke? I do not think so. As a former nicotine addict for too many years, I can say that it is not an easy addiction to shift. It is widely recognised internationally - except within the tobacco industry - that nicotine is more addictive than hash, heroin or cocaine. It is in a place of its own. As adults we have to stand up to this problem. Other speakers have mentioned the health costs involved.

The industry representatives have invested a lot of time in their submissions citing the Australian model to say that plain packaging is impotent and will have no significant effect on discouraging people from smoking. If that is the case, why are they here?

They are pulling this trick out of the book to say that there is some relationship between intellectual property rights and the 1937 Constitution. If they went down to the Law Library the most junior of barristers would tell them that there would be no hope of them being able to sue the State over plain packaging. That is because, assuming that this plain packaging goes ahead, the State will not materially benefit from it. The witnesses know that. I know why they are lobbying me and other Members about this constitutional question that the State might be sued. It is to have some effect and to get enough Deputies to wobble and stand up to the prospect of the Minister introducing the measure. The industry's argument does not stand up legally. Apart from that, the industry representatives are having the opposite effect by trying to zone in on 84 Deputies to get them to oppose the proposal by the Minister for Health.