Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Healthy Ireland 2023 survey stated that 18% of the population aged 15 or over are current smokers,14% smoke daily and 4% said they smoke occasionally.

According to the health behaviour in school-aged children study from 2018, 11% of children between ten and 17 years have tried smoking. That marked a decline of 5% from 16% in 2014. According to the European schools project on alcohol and other drugs in Ireland, 32% of 15- and 16-year-olds had tried smoking and 14% were current smokers.

Initiatives such as the quit smoking programme are really important to get that message out. Some people do not know that nicotine replacement medicine is free of charge. The uptake has increased. People are contacting the helpline and the programme has helped a significant number of people to quit smoking and kick the habit. We need to continue with those initiatives.

Our legislation on vaping is important. Vapes help people to get off smoking. The evidence would say that for smokers, it is better to vape. Vaping is one of the ways of trying to quit smoking. We are looking at all the evidence around it.

Tobacco-Free Ireland has set a target to reduce smoking levels to less than 5% of the population by 2025. This is underpinned by two strategies, namely, the protection of children and the denormalisation of smoking. Those are the two areas we need to look at. There is a public consultation around vaping. The attractiveness of vape packaging, flavours and colours will feed into that. That is ongoing work within the Department.