Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

To follow on from the remarks of Deputy Catherine Murphy, smoking causes 6,000 preventable deaths each year. Members may agree or disagree with that figure. I agree with it. This financial resolution is one the Labour Party will be supporting. It is aimed at young people. People under the age of 24 make up 20% of smokers. Young people are still smoking. I hope it is not an unintended consequence of the budget that money saved on contraception will go towards cigarettes. There are people under 24 who are smoking. They make up 20% of smokers. Making cigarettes prohibitively expensive is a way to disincentivise smoking.

While I was growing up, there were the most vivid, visceral and powerful public health campaigns regarding smoking. All Members have seen those campaigns. In spite of such campaigns, we will not reach the target of only 5% of the population being smokers by 2025. The figure at present is 15% and if the current trends continue we will be nowhere near the target. This financial resolution will have an impact, as will the public health campaigns, but we will still fall far short. It is on the Minister for Health, the Government and all Members of the House to consider what more we can do to reduce this number of preventable deaths. Taxation certainly will not do it alone. If we can stop smoking at source by stopping young people from taking it up, as well as reducing the number of people under 24 who smoke, then we can go some way towards achieving the target.

With this budget increase, a packet of cigarettes will cost €15. It has reached one of those round figures such that people will remember that it now costs €15 for 20 cigarettes. That will stick with people. It is a significant amount of money. The Labour Party will be supporting this financial resolution but more needs to be done because we are way off making the national target of only 5% of the population being smokers by 2025.

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