Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish Members a happy new year. On the Bill, the Minister has outlined the technical reasons it must be brought forward, namely, the European Court judgment and the fact we were infringing the article with regard to free trade and all that flows from the mandatory minimum price. Therefore, I will not go into the detail of the Bill as the Minister has dealt with that and has highlighted why it has been brought to bear.

It is important that we broaden out this debate and encourage Government at all levels to ensure we have forward thinking and forward reaching policies that discourage people from taking up cigarettes and, more importantly, to encourage those who are already on them to give them up. For all those reasons, I believe the Minister should use the EU Presidency this year to encourage the European Union to be more proactive in the whole area of tobacco control.

There is no doubt the international tobacco companies have huge political clout and financial muscle, which they use very effectively. They are insidious organisations that threaten and bully governments. They have been challenging governments which are trying to control tobacco in various countries and have pursued the matter through the courts on a continual basis. These organisations that are selling tobacco around the world have no scruples when it comes to making sure their product has an advantage over other products, particularly in the developing world and by targeting young people in particular. This is quite disgusting and base.

I say all of that because, as the Minister noted, a stubbornly high proportion of our adult population, some 25%, are still smoking some form of tobacco product. If one looks across the developing world, particularly in Africa, Asia and South America, there is a concerted effort by the tobacco companies to target young people. Moreover, when we talk about young people, we are not talking about teenagers but about those aged eight, nine and ten years. This shows the depths these tobacco companies will stoop to in order to try to raise their product profile.

Anything that discourages people from purchasing tobacco is welcome. I am not a puritan on this issue as I frequently struggle with the addiction to nicotine. Nonetheless, we have to be as proactive as possible. I do not want to outbid the Minister in terms of saying what we on this side of the House would do with regard to tobacco control if we were on the other side of the House. However, I know the Minister, having been a practising GP for many years, will have seen first-hand the devastating impact tobacco has on individuals and on the collective health of society. For all of those reasons, we must continue to pursue a policy that discourages tobacco consumption and cigarette sales in this country.

That is why even though this Bill is intended to address a discrepancy in Ireland's compliance with European trade law, it will ensure that tobacco prices will stay high and that price will be used as a mechanism for discouraging the consumption of tobacco. We must go beyond that. I welcome the fact that from February the Minister will publish graphic images on cigarette packs. We should go to generic, homogenous packaging such as is used in other countries, particularly Australia, which has been to the fore in tackling the cigarette companies' ability to advertise in subtle ways. Homogenising tobacco packaging to ensure no company can be identified would be a positive step and we should consider taking it.

The European Union has been appallingly slow to promote positive health in respect of tobacco consumption. Health is a competency of the individual member states and as parties and governments over the years we have fought to retain that subsidiarity. There is, however, an obligation on the European Union to use its muscle to take on the tobacco companies and to deal with them in a forthright manner. Philip Morris, Imperial tobacco and Japanese tobacco companies have huge resources and they are not afraid to use them. I urge the Minister to ensure that the Irish Presidency of the EU will be used to promote healthy living and more important, to address the problem of tobacco consumption. I wish the Minister well in doing so.

The Minister has given figures for the cost of tobacco consumption to the individual's health, to the State, people's lives and their families yet we can purchase this product legally in any shop. Professor Crown, an eminent oncologist, and the Minister, as a general practitioner, have said on numerous occasions that were tobacco to be discovered today or tomorrow we would all campaign to ensure that it would never be legalised. There would not be a discussion on the issue. We would talk about not allowing it into the country or the European Union. The difficulty now is that it is so tied up with vested interests, hedge and insurance funds, that it is a massive industry. It exploits not only the consumer but also the supplier, and the source countries of the raw materials. For these reasons I have no difficulty supporting any proposal or measure that will discourage tobacco consumption, decrease the number of people taking up smoking and encourage those who smoke to try to give it up.

I would also welcome any measures that make it more difficult for these companies to ply their trade. Over the past few years tobacco companies have increased their profit share per pack of cigarettes. Until 2005 or 2006 the profit was €1 per pack. As the Government, in a health policy initiative to discourage people from purchasing cigarettes, continued to increase the excise and VAT on cigarettes the tobacco companies have increased their profit share to €1.84. We must address that issue. The Irish Cancer Society and the Irish Heart Foundation made pre-budget submissions to the Government about bringing forward new proposals with regard to pricing and how VAT and excise would be charged to ensure that any increase in the price of cigarettes goes to the Exchequer, with a mechanism in place whereby tobacco companies make only a certain profit from the sale of cigarettes and the rest of the increase would accrue to the State. It is quite a complex and technical submission but it is worth considering because if the State pursues a policy of increasing the price of cigarettes we are inadvertently making them more profitable for the tobacco companies. We should take these pre-budget submissions on board. The industry has used the opportunity afforded by increases in tax on tobacco to increase its profits.

We endorse the proposals from the Irish Heart Foundation and the Irish Cancer Society that tobacco prices should be controlled in the same way as prices in other sectors, such as energy and taxi fares. With such a change the proportion of the retail price of tobacco that would go to the Exchequer would increase. This could raise a minimum of €100 million in the first year, increasing to approximately €150 million in subsequent years. We want to go down this route to make sure that any increase in the price of tobacco will go to the State to help the State pick up the tab for treating many smoking-related illnesses. Tobacco companies have very low principles and morals as we saw when Philip Morris and others lied through their back teeth at Congressional hearings. They pretended that cigarettes and nicotine are not addictive. These organisations-----

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