Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yes, indeed, I was a smoker for a long time. Thankfully, I am glad to be able to say that I no longer consume. I welcome the regulation of tobacco sales because the regulation element is important, from all sides.

We all received correspondence from various people alleging various omissions from legislation in the past and possible abuses. Generally, however, people welcome the proposals, and I hope the legislation works. It is alleged that some vapes are not really vapes as they still exceed the harm threshold for tobacco. That is the allegation. I have not been able to do other than to accept it and put it forward for the Minister's attention and consideration. I have no doubt he has received these submissions.

The first thing we need to recognise is that the intention of the exercise has to be to dissuade young people from starting to smoke and to encourage those who are smoking away from smoking tobacco. While it may not be the final answer to go towards vapes, anything that helps to reduce the tobacco smoking taking place and to remove it into a different area should be welcomed.

The next thing we need to be absolutely certain of is that we dissuade people from becoming addicted in any way. We need to ensure that there is no possibility of an addiction developing as a result of moving from tobacco to vaping and-or moving to vaping that may still be harmful if it leads to continued tobacco smoking. That is our duty, and I ask the Minister, who is in control of considerable information at this stage, to examine the issues that have come up and the queries that have been raised in a way that is sufficient to assuage any concerns that might at a later stage tend to allow people to come forward and say, "If you did that then, we would not be in the situation we are in now." That is the old story, of course.

The other thing we want to try to do at this stage is to ensure that vaping does not lead to a new beginning for tobacco smoking. That is the most important of all. I discontinued smoking years and years ago. I smoked for 27 years. It was a cold-turkey stop; I just stopped. That can happen but it does not always happen. Some people find it very difficult to break the habit. All I ask the Minister to do in this situation is to ensure, insofar as one can, that nothing is left around that could be a facility to continue the habit or to return to the habit, knowing that some people find it very difficult to change and to break their habit.

Tobacco is a drug and it has been around for a long time. It is a serious threat to people's lives and well-being, and we have to recognise that and deal with it. That has been recognised before this but counterarguments come up from time to time. We need to be alert and aware of the counterarguments and the potential there is for a glamorisation of smoking in any way in the future, knowing that there are a lot of other drugs around at this time and they are all harmful. We need to take stock of society and ourselves and declare whether we are in favour or against because use is growing. The use of narcotics and alcohol is growing. There comes a time when some kind of regulation needs to be introduced that will encourage people to indulge to a lesser extent in a way that is beneficial to their health and to society and in a way in which, in the long and the short run, will be of beneficial assistance to the economy in general.

The Bill contains what is necessary, or as near as possible to what is deemed to be necessary. The Minister needs to be sure, insofar as he can, that there are no hanging threads that would allow loopholes to develop whereby somebody can come up with the idea that they have found a new formula that is absolutely harmless, that is, until we find out something different. We need to be alert to that kind of thing.

Our society is under a considerable threat from a whole lot of sources at the moment, and those threats are manifold, be they from drugs, alcohol or smoking, none of which are of benefit to the individual human being. When prohibition was abolished in the United States - I know the answer to this as well - consumption of alcohol went up by 4,500%. There are those who make the excuse that this was from a very low base. It was not from such a low base at all, as we all know from reading books and looking at films set in that era. Availability was definitely one of the causes of the problem, and availability is one of the main causes of our problems with habit-forming drugs of one description or another, so availability is an issue that will have to be dealt with in all such cases at some time in the future.

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