Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

When I was in college in Maynooth, a while ago now, I started smoking. I was 19 and playing hurling for Kildare and the university but fell into a bad habit and it took me a long time to quit smoking - about 12 years. I was on and off but managed to quit cold turkey and then eventually found a vape on a night out and become dependent on vapes in social settings and then in normal day-to-day settings. To this day, I am on and off a vape - not a disposable vape but a vape you fill up. Much has been said about disposable vapes. I agree with the criticism of them and think they should be banned. The vape liquid is even cheaper. If you have a vape you can refill, the e-liquid for it works out far cheaper in the long run and even in the short term, given we see young people using two or three disposable vapes per day and we see the impact that has.

Other speakers have spoken of the packaging and flavours involved with vapes. That is a key problem. Watermelon ice, pineapple crush or whatever it may be is clearly an attempt to market to younger people and to target children. We are seeing younger and younger people starting to vape. When I was in secondary school, there were some people who smoked at a younger age but now far more teenagers vape than ever smoked. At school, there were always people at the back of the shed or wherever it may be who smoked, but now teenagers are walking home from school and droves of them have plumes following them. There are multiple issues causing that. One is the marketing of this to young people; another is the packaging. Legislation needs to be introduced for plain packaging and to eliminate flavours. We eliminated menthol cigarettes and the tobacco industry came in with clickies to bring it in the back door. They were removed through legislation as well and we need to do the same with plain packaging for vapes and vape products. Flavours need to be removed so only tobacco is available.

It is not just vapes. The tobacco industry is expanding its reach as it sees traditional cigarettes are not in vogue. There are also snus products, little tobacco pouches that go under the lip at the gum and provide high dosages of nicotine. We are seeing significant impacts on the oral and general health of young and older people. These need to be regulated as they are causing serious issues. Friends of mine were at Electric Picnic recently and these were being handed out for free, which completely shocked me. Handing out nicotine products for free to festival goers was clearly an attempt to get more people addicted to those products.

Imagine if there were tobacco companies handing out boxes of free cigarettes. There would be absolute uproar. We should have the same response in relation to handing out the likes of snus, vapes or whatever it may be. That needs to be something that is not permitted in any way, shape or form because it is trying to encourage more young people and people of all ages. Let us be honest; it is not just young people, and it is unfair to put it down to just young people. There are older people like myself who started vaping at an older age to try to stop smoking. Unfortunately, that is now what other people and I are relying on as well to deal with the nicotine addiction that is there.

There are multiple issues around vaping, but it needs to be tackled. It needs to be tackled quickly because we will see health implications further down the line, as we have seen with cigarettes. There have been studies into vaping. We have seen a lot of studies that show there are significant health impacts from vaping, but we are going to see even more of that over the next five, ten or 20 years as we have seen with smoking. We need to get ahead of it. I implore the Minister of State to focus on the packaging and flavours, and to ensure the likes of snus and vaping products are not being handed out at festivals or in public. That is absolutely shocking and should not be something we stand for. I thank the Minister of State for the work she is doing and continues to do.

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