Mr. Andrew Meagher:

I am not a smoker. I would not want my children to smoke. Smoking is for adults. I am very clear about that.

I want to be sure that I answer all the questions. In response to the question about profit, on a turnover of €420 million, €345 million goes to the Government in duty. We have a net profit of €19 million, of which we pay over €13 million to our pension fund. There are over 500 pensioners in the fund. We support that to the tune of over €1 million a month.

In response to some of the specific questions directed to me, Deputy Kelleher spoke about the need for the State to protect adults. I agree with that point too. I acknowledge he is not suggesting that we target children but the State must act. We fully agree the State must act but it must do so on the basis of real evidence but the evidence to date shows that its action has not been effective. That brings me to Deputy Ó Caoláin’s point. He noted that in my submission I said the current tobacco control approach is not working and he disagreed with me. In the past ten years smoking in public places, the sale of packets of ten and display have been banned. There have also been significant increases. Since then, incidence rates have remained stable, according to Eurobarometer. The price and regulation have gone and the illicit sales have gone up.

All the measurements of whether it is working are going north except the one that is the essence of the action, incidence. As defined by Eurobarometer, the European Commission’s way of measuring incidence, it stands at 29%. People talked about 22% but that is the office of tobacco control, OTC, measurement. The committee would expect us to quote independent sources. According to Eurobarometer 29% of adults were smoking in 2012, and 29% smoked in 2006. All those measures have not achieved any reduction in incidence. That is why we are very clear today that if we continue to think that banning is the way to go we will get the same result. We have to consider something other than ban after ban because they are not working. These are not our numbers. They are the European Commission’s numbers. We have to consider education and a different way. Banning it does not stop it. One can ban lots of things but this will not go away. It is necessary to educate-----