John Perry (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael)

I fully support the amendment. The Minister of State will appreciate my view as a retailer. The difficulty for many retailers as, Deputy Varadkar outlined, is the issue of identification. It is very important to recognise the responsibility on retailers of the identification requirement. In many cases it is very difficult to determine the age of someone entering a supermarket. Often there are cases of people aged more than 18 years buy cigarettes for a minor. There is an immense level of responsibility on retailers. It is very difficult to distinguish between someone who is 17 years and someone who is 18 years old. Recently, many retailers have been employing Polish employees and others from Eastern Europe. It can be difficult to know the client and the customer. Ultimately, the principle responsibility falls on the proprietor or owner who, in many cases, may own a large convenience store and this can present a difficulty. It is more important that the public health concerns are clearly expressed in colleges and schools. It is quite frightening when one considers the number of young people who have started smoking. Much needs to be done with regard to the public health campaign against minors smoking and they must be informed of the dangers associated with smoking. This should be done through colleges and schools.

Little or nothing is done when it comes to the public health concerns and the difficulties and health consequences associated with smoking. School buses are an ideal facility in this regard. They are owned by the State and they contain no merchandise. The Department should use this facility to highlight the concerns of under age smoking on State owned property. However, this is not done.

I support the remarks of Deputy Reilly. My brother is a professor of public health and he is against smoking outright, including sponsorship by cigarette companies. Let us consider the premium national sporting organisations in the country. They are not sponsored by cigarette companies but they use other alcohol related products. Smoking has been banned from national organisations but alcohol has not.

It is one thing to introduce legislation but the real difficulty is with its enactment and enforcement. I know of cases in which the HSE encouraged minors to enter shops and retail outlets to establish whether they were in breach of the law, a despicable act. It is a very bad sign if the executive nominated young people under 18 years to enter shops and test the legislation. That is a fact and it represents an appalling vista. Minors were nominated to enter particular stores and find out if they were in breach of the law. That should not happen and the executive should not resort to using minors to check if the law is being policed. I trust in the enforcement of this law minors will not be employed to check whether retailers are in breach of it. I call on the Minister of State to comment on this point. If one has to employ minors to check the validity of the law, something is wrong with the Department, the legislation and its enactment.

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