Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, United Left) | Oireachtas source

For years, the tobacco industry tried to hide the fact but all the medical evidence shows that smoking kills. While the odd smoker may be lucky enough to reach the age of 80 or 90 years, smokers generally do not live to old age. The tobacco industry is one of the most invidious industries in the world. It has been able to buy off governments, organisations and politicians across the globe and has nearly bought off Europe in its effort to keep the industry going. Moreover, it has done so in the knowledge that it is killing people with its products.

As a smoker, I will support any measure aimed at encouraging people to stop smoking. Those who quit smoking remain smokers because they are always open to the temptation of starting to smoke again. When I started smoking at the age of 13 years, packaging was not an issue as I was able to buy single cigarettes in shops. My decision was not related to branding or the colour of the packet but the result of peer pressure. My cousin and friends were smoking and I decided, out of curiosity, to try it out. I now smoke electronic cigarettes, which are controversial.

People with an addiction will do anything to get hold of the product to which they are addicted. Attempts to price cigarettes out of smokers' reach have failed because smokers will always find money to pay for a packet of cigarettes, even it means going without a meal at the end of the week. The removal of branding from cigarette vending machines has not had a significant impact as 22% of the population continues to smoke. The ban on smoking in workplaces, which was introduced ten years ago, had an impact and caused some people to stop smoking. However, unless people want to stop smoking, none of these measures will matter because they are addicted.

Plain packaging will not matter because people will still be addicted. If I was a young person with a smoking addiction, I would buy a nice box to put my cigarettes in when the measure is introduced. This would avoid the embarrassment of having a plain packet. There are many ways to get around this measure. Small shops are selling little cigarette boxes featuring nice colours and designs to encourage young people who smoke to put their cigarettes in them and there is no doubt that people will buy them.

While I am not opposed in principle to plain packaging, I do not believe the measure will achieve the objective the Minister has set. I hope the review to be carried out in Australia at the end of 2014 will produce accurate figures on whether smoking in that country has increased or decreased.

It looks as though there has been an increase in the illegal trade of cigarettes in Australia over the period. I would like to see the figures in the review and how much of an impact on the sale of cigarettes plain packaging has had.

The reason I raise these issues is that the point was made about encouraging young people into sports. I started smoking when I was 13. I was a runner and I ran with Clonliffe Harriers, I was a basketball player and I was a swimmer. I was involved in sports all my life until my mid-30s, but that did not distract me from smoking. Once I took that first drag or the second drag, and the second cigarette, I was addicted. The issue is broader than what the Minister is introducing here.

It was always a big bugbear of mine that while those with alcohol problem can access detox clinics to pull themselves out of society for three months and get detoxed, and drug addicts can access similar facilities, the view is that smokers should just give them up. One cannot just stop smoking. Nicotine and the rubbish they have in cigarettes is more addictive than heroin. It is not possible to just give them up, it involves a change of mindset. Anybody who has smoked and has stopped will be aware that the smoker himself or herself must make that decision.

The only thing that has made me want to move to stop smoking is when I ended up with pleurisy, pneumonia and the first stages of emphysema. That made me say that I have to stop and I do not want to be going around with an oxygen tank on my back when I am 55 or 60 years of age. That is what stopped me in my tracks.

If the Minister seriously wants to encourage smokers to stop, the first step is to help them see that smoking kills. We all think we are invincible and it will not happen to us. The Minister should provide detox clinics where smokers can take themselves out of society for three months so as not to be engaged with the social scene of smoking because one needs that time to be able to stop smoking. I stopped smoking without any support for two years and I went back on them again. I have used nicotine chewing gum. I have used the patches. I have used everything to try and stop smoking. The response has to be bigger. I do not accept what the Minister says, that plain packaging has an impact on many young people. It might have an impact on some of them but if someone gives a friend a pull of a cigarette and he or she starts that one cigarette or the second one, he or she will most likely become addicted, although some do not become addicted.

Those are the sort of measures that should be put in place to support those who are coming off cigarettes. Those who do not smoke do not realise that a smoker's system crashes as such because the loss of nicotine in their system affects their blood. When one stops smoking, there are times when, walking down the street, one will suddenly become dizzy, one cannot walk and one must sit down. One has to take time out. One gets cranky. One gets narky with members of your family. It is very difficult to cease the addiction.

I will not oppose the Bill but it will not be enough. It will not achieve the outcome with smokers that some believe it will because, as I said, once one is addicted, one will do anything in one's power and find ways to keep one's addiction, but using ways to prevent it in a different way. It is those areas that should be looked at. The supports for those who want to stop smoking have to be looked at because without those supports there will be fewer deciding to stop. Those thinking about stopping smoking are on their own. One can go to a chemist who will talk to you about the Nicorette chewing gum, tablet or patch, but then one is on one's own, the decision must be made alone. There has to be other ways to be able to support smokers to go into a clinic for a period of time to break the cycle of addiction. Then those who are making their mind up can go somewhere like that and get support. That would be much more effective than plain packaging.

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