Barry Ward (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

I put on record my support for the smoking ban. Ireland showed its mettle in terms of being ahead of the pack and dealing with smoking in a really serious way about 20 years ago. I have friends who gave up smoking the day the smoking ban came in and they have stayed off cigarettes ever since. It has undoubtedly saved lives and I pay tribute to the Ministers for Health who have contributed to attacking smoking over a long number of years.

I remember working in pubs as a teenager and going home reeking of smoke. It is such a great thing that this is no longer happens to workers in their work environment.

That is great and the Public Health (Tobacco) Acts and the legislation we brought forward were a really positive force for dealing with this public health issue, but let us be under no illusions, because vapes, electronic cigarettes and nicotine products also pose a public health risk. While it may not be possible to show the direct causal link we have established with tobacco products there is no doubt the toxic substances used in these nicotine products cause harm and no doubt whatsoever that they are highly addictive, because there is scientific evidence for it. The notion, therefore, we would be supporting a regime that allows people to engage in addictive behaviour that is going to become worse and worse is highly regrettable. In that regard I welcome some progress on banning the sale of them to under-18s. I welcome the proposed legislation, which I understand is going to ban disposable vapes, though we are still behind the curve on that as it has already been done in Belgium, France and the United Kingdom. I agree with the bans on the point of sale displays, making them look like toys and the colours and flavours.

All this makes sense but given we have been through this experience already, we need to be serious about this and essentially substitute the word “nicotine” for the word “tobacco” in the Public Health (Tobacco) Acts. All these products contain nicotine but they do not seem to have the same recognition within the State apparatus for helping people quit smoking, and vapes can be a gateway to cigarettes rather than a means to get away from them for many people as well. I hear people saying the quit programme, which has shown some success in helping people leave the fags behind, does not extend to these nicotine products. It should, and we should be providing the funding in the coming budget to ensure the programme is allowed to operate for e-cigarettes, nicotine products and vapes. The easiest way to do that is to essentially deal with them as if they were tobacco products, the same as cigarettes or other tobacco, and substitute the word “nicotine” into the Public Health (Tobacco) Acts so all the restrictions that apply to smoking indoors, purchasing cigarettes, advertising cigarettes to making them available to or to targeting them at children can be dealt with in one fell swoop. Rather than reinventing the wheel in the form of the legislation the Minister of State is proposing, which I am absolutely behind, let us do it across the board and ensure they are treated in the same way we treated cigarettes 20 years ago.

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