Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Today, we opened proceedings in this Chamber with Leaders' Questions during which the Fianna Fáil leader brought to our attention the discovery of equine DNA in beef hamburgers. During the course of answers and supplementary questions, along with significant media focus on the topic, we discovered there was virtually zero health risk with what was found in the hamburgers. By contrast, here we are at the end of the day discussing a landmark and important Bill that gives the Minister powers in regulating advertising and packaging which will impact on the marketing and sale of cigarettes and tobacco.

It is claimed one in four adults smokes. If we are to be honest, however, that works out as one in every three because a quarter of adults probably have no intention of ever smoking or have given it up. The truth behind the statistic is probably one in three which is one too many.

We have heard that raising the price of cigarettes and tobacco does reduce their consumption. On 19 August 1980, luckily, I decided to stop smoking. At today's prices, smoking 20 cigarettes a day worked out a €3,276 for a year. If I had held steady my consumption rate of 20 a day 33 years ago, I would have spent €108,108. That is one hell of an after-tax saving. A young person smoking ten cigarettes a day will spend €1,638 a year on them which is the equivalent of the soon to be introduced residential property tax on a house worth €910,000. If a young person today thinks that it is worth smoking for the enjoyment and the sociability of stepping outside a pub for five cigarettes on a social night, twice a week, he or she will spend the equivalent of the residential property tax on a house worth €910,000. If it only is a casual habit at five-a-day, then the annual spend is the equivalent of the property tax of a house valued at €455,000.

These are the sums but numbers do not relate to experience. Young people remember experience. They will remember the experience of a mother, father, brother or sister becoming very ill or dying from tobacco-related diseases. We have also heard the battleground is in educating young and mature people. Where do we give our undivided attention to our health? It is not when we are reading textbooks, looking at notices or even listening to advertisements but when we are in the doctor's surgery. There he has our undivided attention. One usually attends a surgery when one has a health problem. Good general practitioners, as the Minister knows, will spot even the occasional smoker by their skin complexion, breath, hoarseness or if they have a chest infection. This provides a wonderful opportunity for the general practitioners to take several extra minutes to give - not to preach - an honest lesson about where the smoker is headed unless they decide to stop. It requires one to make a decision to give up smoking. No amount of wishful thinking or positioning will achieve it.

One other factor that has emerged in this debate is the number of contraband cigarettes consumed. These can be priced and sold at a third or even half of the price of licensed tobacco. The fines imposed on cigarette and tobacco smugglers are ludicrously small compared to the rewards they get if successful. This is a matter that the Departments of Health and Justice and Equality need to work on. The vast quantities of smuggled cigarettes that are discovered are usually found in 40 ft. shipping containers at the docks. These do not arrive by parachute from aeroplanes but by shipping lines. The owners of these shipping lines would soon be forced to concentrate on their ships' bills of lading if they knew they would be fined €200,000 if smuggled cigarettes were contained in them. That would concentrate their minds and make them check what is exactly in their ships' manifests. I believe we have been indulgently soft on this. It is limp policing and we want to stiffen it up.

One out of every three young women smokes. The deaths from lung cancers for that group exceed those from breast cancer. This brings me back to underlining the importance of the education about the dangers of smoking in the doctor's surgery. The doctors can show the pictures rather than have them on the cigarette packets. It is in the serious and sober environment of the surgery that a smoker will absorb the information about the mutations that take place on the lungs and other organs through smoking. Photographs of these diseases on the packages will not be noticed when the packet will always be in the pocket or when people are socialising. Will the Minister, his staff and the Health Service Executive begin rolling out this education process in the doctor's surgery not by way of notices in the waiting room but through a three minute conversation between doctor and patient? Then it will reach every age group and income strata in society.

Smoking for younger people is the gateway to other so-called soft drugs, but they are not soft, they are dangerously addictive and they are behaviour-altering. One cannot indulge in such things as marijuana and weed unless one smokes. Therefore, if one does not smoke one has closed off another dangerous avenue to self harm.

The advertising and marketing of tobacco is altogether invidious. British American Tobacco, BAT, was the subject of a documentary on BBC Two some years ago. It was shown by the producers of the documentary that where advertising was prohibited, merchandising and marketing took place in shops at corner locations in towns in African countries and the shops were presented as enlarged packets of cigarettes, in particular the Benson & Hedges gold pack. Shops were fronted in this way. Other merchandising tricks - that is all they are - were played in which cigarette packets could be broken up, sold and distributed by under age children. The practices that BAT indulged in were invidious and appalling.

It was disappointing to see that a recent governor of Bank of Ireland, after stepping down from that position, moved over to become chairman of BAT on a salary larger than what he had as governor of Bank of Ireland.

People who have been lucky and fortunate in society should come together not as part of a bible-thumping evangelical mission but with the right message and a truthful presentation of the health risks. People involved in sport are wonderful because they encourage young people to keep fit, healthy and well and to enjoy sports and stay away from harmful habits.

Another aspect of the behaviour of these international manufacturers is entirely wrong. Nicotine is the addictive chemical in tobacco. When people give up cigarettes they try products such as Nicorette patches. If cigarettes only had naturally occurring addictive nicotine then Nicorette products might work, but the cigarette and confectionery manufacturers - we have a problem with obesity and sugar as well - bring in additives which are addictive. This is entirely wrong. There are additional addictive properties in cigarettes such that even if one's nicotine addiction was being addressed or suppressed, the other addictions would remain active and alive. I am unsure whether this is under the ambit of the Department of Health or the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine but the composition and the addition of other chemicals in products such as cigarettes should be addressed.

I have referred to the economics and costings and how wasteful cigarettes are for individuals. I have also referred to the opportunity for relevant education to begin in visits to the general practitioner surgery. I invite the Minister to somehow start a programme whereby all general practitioners would be asked to have the appropriate conversation with every patient who comes in.

I invite the journalists to reflect on today's proceedings in the Chamber, where we discussed in headline terms the issue of equine DNA in hamburgers, an issue which, we have been assured, does not pose a health risk. Today that topic has been highlighted disproportionately compared to this legislation, which is most worthy and which could help to prevent between 5,000 and 7,000 smoking-related deaths every year in the country. The Minister also stated that there were approximately 700,000 deaths through the European Community as a result of smoking. I invite the journalists and the media to emphasise and underscore the Minister's closing general remarks about tobacco and smoking. Therein lies the opportunity to greatly help and improve the health of the nation and the opportunity for the avoidance of so much illness, disease and death.

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