Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 15 February 2022
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health
General Scheme of the Public Health (Tobacco and Nicotine Inhaling Products) Bill 2019: Discussion (Resumed)
Mr. Declan Connolly:
No, I do not. Two studies came out this year. The ESPAD study was a schools survey in 35 countries throughout Europe. For the 30 day usage we spoke about earlier, Ireland did show an increase. I will admit that is worrying. When we go down into the numbers, however, we see the daily use figure in the last year had reduced from 6% to 5.3%. Again we are No. 5 out of 35 countries. In other words, we are the fifth lowest for youth smoking in Europe.