Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I think he was not available and his colleague came in. There was a lively exchange. The result is that Deputy Shortall's amendment is staying in the Bill. We are not seeking to remove it. It was Deputy Shortall's amendment and it was voted through on Committee Stage. We are proposing to leave it in there. Deputy Shortall has made the point that she feels 24 months is too long. The advice I have is that 12 months might be a bit short but it does not matter. We are leaving it in there. We now have a review clause in that came from the Select Committee on Health, so there will be a review done after 12 months.

If we step back for a minute, we need to understand very clearly what this Bill is going to do, and why we need to get it in very quickly. I know I will have colleagues' support on that. Then I want to speak to the second Bill that we are now drafting, on which a public consultation is starting and which is very cognisant of the excellent work done by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health in the prelegislative scrutiny for this Bill.

This Bill is essentially doing three things. It is introducing very strict licensing and increased regulation of the retailers of tobacco and nicotine inhaling products. We have all focused on the vaping side of this but in fact, there are important measures in here for smoking and tobacco as well. First, it introduces strict licensing and increased regulation of retailing of tobacco and vaping. Second, it introduces new restrictions on the sale of both types of product - tobacco and vaping - and restrictions on the advertising of vapes and nicotine inhaling products. Third, it provides additional enforcement powers to the environmental health service for the previous tobacco control Acts. While we have all focused on the vaping part of this, it is both tobacco and nicotine inhaling products that this is moving on.

On the licensing system, a licence will be required for the sale of tobacco and nicotine inhaling products, which includes any element of an e-cigarette, including the liquids. It will have an annual licence that will be required for every premises. The licence fee will be set by the Minister for Health. The minimum licence period should be 12 months. Applications must provide a tax clearance certificate. There are various other pieces to that, and offences are provided.

The piece that we have focused on most, for very good reason, is the second objective of the Bill, which is new restrictions on sale and advertising. The sale of nicotine inhaling products to children is prohibited. That, to me, is the single most important thing we are doing this evening. We all probably agree on that. The sale of both tobacco and vapes by a child is prohibited, except in very limited circumstances. The sale of both types of products by self-service, for example vending machines, is being prohibited. The sale of cigarettes and vapes through vending machines will be prohibited. The sale of both types of products at events for children is prohibited. Advertising of nicotine inhaling products around schools and public transport is prohibited, and advertising of nicotine inhaling products in cinemas is restricted as well. The third part, which we have spent less time on, is around the enforcement tools. We have compliance, prohibition and fixed payment notices. That is what this Bill is doing.

I get the sense that there is very strong agreement around the House that we have to go much further than this with regard to vapes. To that effect, we are drafting new legislation. We are using the report we got from the Joint Committee on Health. We are doing a public consultation, and we are going to move very quickly on point-of-sale advertising. We have to get rid of this situation where people walk into a petrol station or a retailer and they are bombarded with all of these vaping products. We want to look at the colourings, and the fact that these are clearly, to my mind - I think there is broad agreement on this as well - being targeted at children. We are going to look at flavourings. We need to vastly reduce flavourings, and there are options that are just one flavour. In some countries, they have just two flavours, so we are looking at that. Critically, I wanted to include a full ban on single-use, disposable vapes as well.

Not all but many of the issues that Deputy Cullinane is covering in his review will actually be contained within this second Bill, which we are going to bring in very quickly. We have some excellent input from the Joint Committee on Health, and we will do our public consultation. We will draft a Bill. We will then notify the EU. There is a notice period that has to be gone through. We need the draft Bill to do that notification, and then we will push on. In that second Bill, we might well include a review clause on foot of Deputy Shortall's amendment, which is now included in this, and to the effect of Deputy Cullinane's proposed amendment here. That is how I propose we proceed.

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