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

Yes but they did lie to Congressional and Senate hearings about whether tobacco was an addictive substance and whether they used ingredients that made it more difficult for people not to smoke. I am simply making that point and we need to be conscious that while many of these organisations are seen to be respectable they will use every method and mechanism to defend themselves, as I highlighted in the context of the challenges brought before the Australian Supreme Court some time ago about copyright and packaging. For all those reasons it is important to consider this budget submission.

On the broader issue of health policy and without criticising the Minister, while we welcome the moves in some areas with regard to packaging and graphic advertising, we have a long way to go in promoting the concept of a healthy society. We have not made the strides that others have, for example, Australia, New Zealand and some other countries which have made a holistic healthy lifestyle central to education, schooling, the workplace and across the board. Our effort is a little haphazard. There must be a stronger emphasis on encouraging people to make decisions, giving them information to make choices that will give them a better quality of life. It will improve society and cut down the burden to the State of funding health services to treat illnesses associated with tobacco and alcohol consumption, obesity and other areas. We should encourage people to take up exercise and while there are stated policies there is no central driver in this area. The HSE is half-obligated to promote healthy living and has a health promotion unit but we need to step beyond that to create a central policy unit similar to the Road Safety Authority.

This was very effective in targeting road safety. It was able to introduce and publish its policies and nudge governments, ensuring that all policies coming from Government and the various Departments maintained a focused and determined effort to reduce road deaths. In this it has been very successful. We must have something similar in this area, an agency that has statutory powers, advises Government and holds it to account to ensure policies emanating from a Department are in accordance with what our stated objective should be, namely, to ensure there are health-centred policies across all Departments. Even when we are talking and debating, and meeting organisations to try to encourage people to get involved in more healthy aspects of life, people will say this subject transcends children and goes into areas of education, justice, health and across all areas. At the same time we should be more proactive in setting up a statutory agency that would have powers and a strong advocacy role in promoting every aspect of healthy living.

This Bill is more or less technical in that it is intended to ensure Irish law is compatible with EU law. The broader issues must be continually targeted, however. We now know, for example, that there is a cohort of 25% of adults who smoke and there is still a take-up of smoking by young people. There is subtle advertising in other ways because companies are not allowed to advertise in the traditional way. They target young girls for example, with the message that if one smokes cigarettes this is actually a diet and one will be tall, thin and beautiful like Kate Mosse. This insidious type of advertising should be targeted at an EU level and I encourage the Minister to consider this.

I wish the Minister well during the Presidency and hope he will ensure there is a strong emphasis at EU level in tackling and reducing tobacco consumption and bringing about a more holistic and healthy lifestyle in society. Not only would this benefit Irish people but it could become a European-wide policy of healthy lifestyle and a holistic approach to living, tackling childhood obesity and alcohol-related illnesses as well as the obvious illnesses that arise from tobacco. For all those reasons, if the Minister were to use the Presidency for this purpose he would be very much supported on this side of the House and such a policy would be embraced by many people.

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