Mr. Declan Connolly:

I do not know quite where to start. Deputy Durkan asked many different questions while he was speaking. Regarding one of the issues he addressed, he was wondering whether there had been an increase in smoking and a decrease in vaping or vice versa or what the situation had been over the past couple of years. I like to refer back to the Healthy Ireland report because it is based on Government-produced data. The 2021 Healthy Ireland report was a little bit curtailed because of the pandemic but what did come out of it was that the number smoking rose by a percentage point from 17% to 18% in 2021. That is concerning. During that same period, the number vaping decreased by a percentage point. As to whether those who stopped vaping started smoking, it can be difficult to tell whether any correlation implies causation in one year but the stress of the pandemic certainly had an impact. People working from home smoke more. Due to the stress of the pandemic, many people were also very concerned about their smoking and tried to give up. They also tried to give up vaping because there were concerns around it. We all wanted to breathe in as much clean air as possible and not have anything interfering with our lungs. In the next year or two, this data will be a lot more solid. It will be interesting to see the data for this year and next year.

As I have said, the number vaping has remained static or dropped over recent years. Before that, it had been increasing. The figures from the UK are similar. They show that the level of people vaping has plateaued there as well.