Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as an ábhar seo a thabhairt faoi bhráid na Dála. As Deputy Daly said, vapes have inadvertently turned from a gateway out of nicotine to a gateway into nicotine. We need to see a step change in how we regulate and address this market to ensure that whatever consequences this leads to are not unintended.

At this point, I will recall my work with the junior safety forum in South Dublin County Council, which was an initiative of the joint policing committee. When we asked fifth and sixth class students to identify the burning issues in their communities, one of the top issues they chose was the prevalence of vapes. They referred not just to the single-use vapes that were littering their playgrounds but also to the fact that many of their peers were being attracted to vapes because they were seen as an attractive pastime without any consideration for the public health and health implications that come with it. As part of that work, the students developed an awareness campaign designed for their peers to show the negative physical, emotional and mental effects of vaping. That was quite an effective piece of work because it came from the ground up in terms of educating people about the dangers of vapes.

I will not repeat the points that have been made already about the prevalence of flavours being used to market these vapes to children so that they are attractive and have the gateway effect that leads to the unintended consequences I referred to earlier. It has already been mentioned that the use of vapes has led to littering in villages, towns and cities around the country. I think there is a role for looking at our planning laws in this context. Just as we seek to prevent an overconcentration of off-licences in our towns and cities, we need to take the same approach to vape shops.

There are many areas in my constituency where there is an overconcentration of vape shops. We really need to stamp that out now in order to ensure that vapes are seen as a controlled product, that there is a public health aspect to their sale, that they are not the same as sweets and that this should be reflected in our planning code.

As we look towards a new set of development plans for our cities and counties, I encourage Members on the Government benches to take this into account in how we deal with it. Vapes are not supposed to be a stand-alone nicotine product. That should be reflected in every aspect of legislation designed to deal with them. I welcome the Minister's efforts in this regard.

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