Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill, which the Labour Party will support. It is a relatively straightforward and common-sense Bill to which I do not think there will be any opposition. It inserts itself into the overall policy framework, designed in 2013, that seeks to make Ireland tobacco-free by 2025. Currently, Ireland has a smoking rate of 18%. While we as a nation consider ourselves to have been a leader in tackling smoking and smoking addiction by bringing in the smoking ban nearly 20 years ago, there is an argument that we have become quite complacent in this area. Given the current smoking rate of 18%, it could take until the late 2040s to reach our stated target of being tobacco free, which equates to a tobacco smoking prevalence rate of under 5%. Our progress in this area has slowed. In the intervening time since the target was set, we have had the phenomenon of vaping come into our lives. Its prevalence has increased. While the Bill aims to tackle vaping among young people through licensing and prohibitions, we will have to do a lot more work in the health space when it comes to understanding, legislating for and regulating, insofar as we see fit, the whole area of vaping and nicotine inhaling products. There is a lot of contested literature and a large number of contested studies. What is not contested is what we are discussing today and what is proposed in this legislation, that is, the need to stop young people from vaping and then going on to smoke.

Tobacco use continues to be the leading cause of preventable deaths in Ireland, with anywhere between 4,600 and 5,200 people passing away each year and 55,000 hospitalisations annually due to the impacts of smoking. A conservative estimate is that its cost to the health system is €1.6 billion every year. Vaping has assisted many smokers to move away from smoking. I have adult family members who transitioned to being non-smokers through vaping. However, as well as people transitioning in that direction, there are others, many of them young people, going in the opposite direction. Their journey towards smoking begins with vaping at a very young age. That is not to say all young people who vape will go on to smoke. However, as a Legislature, we must recognise we live in a world in which some young people will always challenge what they are told they should be doing by smoking, drinking or doing other things. We must acknowledge that.

Until this legislation goes through, we are living with an environment in which it is not illegal to sell vaping devices to children. In reality, to the credit of most store owners and retailers, e-cigarettes are usually sold in the same manner as traditional cigarettes, with identification required. However, there are many cases in which that is not done. The problem is not just with online retailers.

We see them being sold in petrol stations and in many shops. Would you believe that disposable vapes are even being sold in butchers' shops in my constituency? The evidence is everywhere, and it is stark. From speaking to teachers and parents, we know that primary school children are now vaping, teenagers are vaping, and young people who have never smoked are now vaping.

I attended one of Bruce Springsteen's recent concerts. If one goes to any of the summer concerts in our public parks or stadiums, one sees used disposable vapes all over the ground when walking out at the end of the evening. One of the biggest music festivals in north-western Europe, Glastonbury, has now added disposable vapes to the list of items that people should not bring to the festival on environmental grounds. They become littered all over the ground and there are massive issues in disposing of them in an environmentally friendly manner. This is an epidemic of health and environmental concern, which is another reason this legislation is long overdue.

Ireland has a duty of care to implement, as a matter of urgency, this legislation to outlaw the sale of these e-cigarettes to minors and to tackle this growing problem in the same way that we tackled traditional cigarettes in the past. We must be brave and be bold to ensure we have strong legislation that is backed up by strong public health policy, which I believe we do in this regard.

In the past two weeks, the Irish Cancer Society gave Members a pre-budget briefing on the impact of cancer on the health system and society, and on the role that tobacco addiction plays in that. When we progress the debate beyond this legislation, as I said at the outset, we need to be conscious of the complex public framework within which vaping and e-cigarettes currently exist. We are going to have to have those conversations also with regard to adults who are vaping. We must look at the regulation of the product itself: will we look at the Australian model of banning it outright or will we go for something that is bespoke to Ireland? These are the difficult debates - far more difficult than this - that lie ahead.

I thank the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, for bringing this Bill forward. The Labour Party will be supporting it. We hope it has a speedy passage through the House and that it will become law as soon as possible.

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