Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

First, I had better declare my interest in that I am a member of the Law Society. I wish to raise the issue of property rights in terms of where the State is taking action that involves public health.

Submissions the committee received over the past number of weeks clearly indicate that 5,000 people are dying per annum as a direct result of smoking. I stated this morning that since the Surgeon General in the United States published his report in 1964, some 250,000 have died in this country as a direct result of smoking. Does the State have an obligation to take every possible action to protect the health of its citizens that takes precedence over property rights?

I raised this second issue already this morning. The legislation dealing with the ESB that was introduced involved rights to go over land and even though I might be a landowner, I cannot restrict the ESB from going over my land because it was established that there was a need to get electricity supply to every household in the country. In that case, the landowner's property rights are being infringed upon. In this case, not only in this decision by the Department of Health but in a number of its decisions to reduce the numbers smoking, we are constitutionally obliged to do everything possible to protect people's health. I do not understand how property rights could take precedence over the rights of people to live and the right to ensure that we can do everything possible to remove the risks. Will the Law Society representatives deal with that issue?

The other matter I am a little concerned about is that there is no submission from the Law Society setting out the obligations of the State to reduce the health risks attached to smoking. The Law Society has told the committee about intellectual property rights, but what about people's right to live and to ensure that their lives are not at risk in any way? If a drug was being sold in a pharmacy in the morning and it was identified that this would cause death, the State would be obliged to take immediate action to have that drug withdrawn. The Law Society has not dealt with that in its submission. I am talking about bringing balance to the submission. Why not make a submission to us on the obligations of the State to do something in that area?