Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent)

I welcome this Bill and the spirit in which it is introduced. The motivation behind it is undoubtedly something we should applaud. The only problem I have with it is that I am doubtful about the effectiveness of these measures. In her contribution the Minister of State highlighted an interesting statistic, namely, that 29% of the population - nearly one in three - still smoke despite past legislation of this sort, including the legislation introduced by Deputy Micheál Martin when he was Minister for Health and Children and massive educational campaigns to stop people smoking. One wonders what will deter people from smoking if this sort of campaign will not do so.

The introduction of pictures of this sort is welcome in the sense that it is an attempt to give people an opportunity to make an informed decision. It is difficult to get that message across to people who do not want to hear it, namely, smokers. People who started smoking do not like to hear that what they are doing is bad for them because they enjoy smoking so much, but it is important to get that message across to children and younger people and I welcome the campaign in that sense.

I sometimes worry, and I would be interested to hear the Minister of State's comments on this, about the value and virtue of shock therapy of this sort. Some of these pictures are commendable but there are some horrific images also. One sees the same type of images in the television advertisements highlighting car accidents and the dangers of drinking and driving. There is a tendency to introduce shock therapy to discourage people from doing something but I often wonder about the effect of that on people who already have got cancerous effects, and one of these pictures is of a cancerous lung. It is somewhat unfair to those who already have that disease to be told the state of their lungs and how horrific it is for them to see that.

I wonder if the message could be got across without it being quite so stark and crude. I do not know what the research shows on the effect of these messages and whether it prevents people from taking up smoking but I imagine it might be just as effective if the message could be got across in terms of statistics and the damage that could be done. Some of these photographs are deliberately vile in appearance and I imagine extremely hurtful to those already suffering from these diseases and for their families. That also applies also to those advertisements depicting car crashes because the families of people killed must be very upset by them. It is a consideration which should be taken into account. It might be better to accentuate the positive benefits of not smoking or giving up smoking rather than the horrors of what one may do to oneself or maybe have already done to oneself if one continues to smoke heavily.

I say that as one who many years ago smoked at least 100 cigarettes a day for many years. That was utterly destructive in terms of my bank balance, although one does not notice it because it is gradual in that it is only so much per day, but also in terms of my health. I was lucky in that I was too young at the time for my health to have suffered but it was unhygienic, undoubtedly unhealthy, unpleasant for people who were with me, and it caused offence to the many people who had to put up with it. It also affected my own life in that I found it difficult to go to places where I was not encouraged or allowed to smoke. I smoked between courses. I smoked when I got up and I smoked before I went to bed. I smoked in bed. I was certainly an addict, although I gave it up without any help, but it is the kind of addiction which must be discouraged and is something which is insoluble unless we go to the extreme of banning smoking, which is unrealistic at this stage.

The statistics are utterly convincing. There is enough in the Minister's contribution statistically to convince one that smoking is deeply damaging to one's health. The number of people who have got cancer or heart disease as a result of smoking is very convincing but there are still what I call the flat earth smokers around who say that if somebody eats enough fat or does such and such they will damage their heart. However, smoking is a massive contributory factor. Ask any general practitioner what are the contributors to heart disease and they will say stress, high cholesterol levels and smoking. If one does not smoke they will take one off the list and say one is in less danger. It is pointless to contest the fact that smoking is bad for people. It is extremely bad for them, and it may cause their death. They may be lucky, and many smokers hope to be lucky, although they are playing Russian roulette with their lungs, but statistically they are unlikely to be that lucky.

The other issue is the freedom of the individual to do what they wish. There is the nanny state argument that if people want to drink, smoke, smoke cannabis, take heroin or whatever, they are adults and they should be allowed to do it. I am not sure I agree with that argument because what they do not have is the ability to make that informed choice. An informed choice will be helped by putting these photographs and more text on cigarette packets but whatever we do it must be State policy to discourage people from doing things which, in the view of the Government and the State, are categorically and almost undeniably bad for their health. That is a duty for an adult state to take. It should not be compulsion but encouragement.

I welcome the Bill. I congratulate the Minister on introducing it. I hope it will be effective but I hope also that she might consider examining the crude nature of the advertisements used because they may be extraordinarily upsetting to people already suffering from diseases connected with smoking.

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