Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish the Minister well in the project this legislation is intended to progress. It is a pity the health spokespersons cannot all be present because they are at the health committee, which is a bit bizarre. I know Deputy Ó Caoláin was involved and was very supportive of this legislation.

There will, hopefully, be other measures to follow up on this legislation in future. For everything else we eat and drink, the ingredients are listed, and there needs to be a move towards listing or limiting some of the ingredients contained in cigarettes which are sold to the general public. There also needs to be more action in terms of taxation and whatever other moves we can take to try to discourage people further at this stage, so future generations and the future HSE does not have such a high cost in terms of the health bill which, as the Minister mentioned, is estimated at €1 billion this year. We must also consider everything that flows from that, including the families that are affected when a person is in hospital or in dire straits because of the consequences of smoking in an earlier part of their life or right through their life.

I wish the legislation well. I hope it will have the desired effect and cut down on the number of people, particularly young people, who are smoking, and that society as a whole starts to learn the full consequences of people smoking. I ask that, at a future date, we start to address the issue of the ingredients contained in cigarettes and start to ban some of the ingredients. While that might not necessarily reduce the number of cigarettes smoked, it might reduce their effect.

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