Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The tobacco industry is one of the most evil industries that has ever existed, although it works within a legal framework. It has consigned millions of people to their deaths, destroyed millions of lives and injured and maimed millions more. It infamously targeted children to get them addicted young and secure customers for life. It suppressed for decades knowledge and research that proved how fatal tobacco smoking was. The comprehensive anti-tobacco legislation of 2002, coupled with the smoking ban of 2004, helped to de-normalise smoking and allowed for worker safety, while also preventing younger generations from engaging in a killer habit.

The tobacco industry, however, has struck back via the vaping epidemic. The vaping industry mirrors many of the strategies deployed by the tobacco industry, particularly in hooking young people and getting them addicted to nicotine. The financial muscle behind this epidemic is provided by the tobacco industry. Children are being targeted with colourful and flavoured vaping products. Pop-up shops selling vaping devices and e-cigarettes are located in the country's shopping centres and on main streets. Advertising campaigns have proliferated on nearly every Dublin bus, as well as on strategically placed billboards all over Dublin and across cities and towns. Last week the United States Center for Disease Control, CDC, produced some alarming statistics which confirmed that over 1,000 lung injuries and 19 deaths had already occurred in 48 states due to vaping. The CDC has warned that the aerosols users inhale and exhale from e-cigarettes can potentially expose them and bystanders to other harmful substances such as heavy metals and volatile organic compounds. As a result, there has been a flurry of legislative activity in a variety of US states banning the use of vaping devices and advertisements to varying degrees, particularly those aimed at young people. There has been an unacceptable level of youth usage of these products. Teen e-cigarette use has risen sharply since 2017. When will the Government introduce legislation to ban the sale of vaping products to people under the age of 18 years? Will it introduce legislation to ban all advertising and sponsorship of vaping products, as we did for tobacco products? Will the Government extend the existing ban on tobacco in the workplace to vaping? One wonders how such devices ever came into being. I ask the Taoiseach to send me at a later date a comprehensive account of the regulatory framework governing the vaping sector.

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