Geraldine Feeney (Fianna Fail)

I will let that go. I know what Senator McHugh was alluding to. He and I often meet in an establishment on Baggot Street and we come out with sore eyes, runny noses, itchy throats and coughs, and we complain about these in this House the following day. They are some of the effects that we notice while we are in that environment, but what about the effects that are causing the cancer, the chest problems, the heart disease and the strokes? They are building up, and we do not realise they are happening to us until it is far too late. It was put to me that when the then Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Dempsey, introduced the levy on plastic bags, people were outraged and said it would never work. The introduction of the levy is history today. Who do we ever see carrying a plastic bag? None of us wants to have anything to do with plastic. If we introduce a smoking ban, it will be accepted in this way.

When we fly to the other side of the world and find ourselves on a plane for more than 15 hours, no one is smoking on those planes. We have to get on with it. Nobody would wish smoking to be allowed on planes ever again, not alone because of the harmful health effects involved, but for other obvious reasons.