Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is the age at which young people experiment and they will try different things. As for older ages, every year, including in the most recent budget, the price of tobacco and other nicotine products has been increased. Many people make the argument that this will only make people who have an addiction try to get the products somewhere else. Every time the price of cigarettes is increased, people are further encouraged to go elsewhere. We are driving them into the black market and the dodgy products, where there is no regulation and we do not know what people are smoking. That is the downside of that approach. Similarly, there is no evidence that the latest legislation, relating to graphic pictures on the products, is working on people. There was evidence at one stage that some young women smoked because they believed it was linked to losing weight and so on.