Mr. Declan Connolly:

I thank Deputy Burke for his question. I do not like to do this because I believe both the Irish Heart Foundation and the Irish Cancer Society carry out tremendous work, but when they say there is an increase and that more youths are beginning to smoke, that is not borne out by the facts or the statistics. To go back to my opening statement, fewer than 1% of people who vape are never smokers and the rate of smoking has actually declined. One of the surveys that the Irish Heart Foundation and the Irish Cancer Society referred to when they were with the committee was the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and other Drugs, ESPAD. In fact, the data from that is very encouraging when it comes to the rate of smoking among youth in Ireland. Ireland is the fifth lowest out of 35 countries in Europe with regard to smoking. That is something Ireland should be proud of rather than it being something to be alarmed about.