Mr. Chris Macey:

We have, in our two most recent pre-budget submissions, called for taxation of e-cigarettes at a level that will discourage young people but not prevent long-term smokers who might benefit. We would support that.

I thank the Chair for the opportunity to speak. Ms Power mentioned that the level of knowledge members have on the issues and the views we have heard this morning are encouraging. It is important that we do this. If we do not deal with the addiction issue in terms of e-cigarettes and children and young people now, we probably will not get the chance again. This is the proposed legislation, and this is the time to do it. Defensive measures will stop the smoking rate from increasing again, which is what e-cigarettes could, apart from people becoming addicted to them, lead to.

We need to get into the endgame for tobacco. We are still at 14% of teenagers smoking. The rate among adults has been falling steadily but increased in the last HSE tracker from 15.4% to 16.1%. There are more than 600,000 smokers in the country. To reach our tobacco-free Ireland target by 2025, that has to be brought down to approximately 200,000. We are way off that and we worried that the tide is turning negatively. We have to deal with that and to continue the downward trend. We have to look at ambitious and new ways of achieving that. That is why the Irish Heart Foundation will campaign hard in the time to come to get the age of sale increased, because the evidence is compelling on it. I thank the Chair and members.