Geraldine Feeney (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House.

We all knew this Bill was coming but it rings sweet in one's ear to have it before the House. I listened to Senator Feighan state that his party would support the Bill. It is getting all-party support, which is pleasing. That is the way in which we must proceed in the battle against tobacco.

It is wonderful that Ireland, a small State on the periphery of Europe, is leading the way in the fight against tobacco. As has been rightly outlined by Senators, smoking is a huge health issue — probably one of the greatest we have ever had to deal with. It is all the more welcome that we are doing something positive by introducing this Bill.

Last May, the House debated alcohol and tobacco consumption on a Private Members' motion. We were all well-versed and advised at the time by groups such as the Cancer Society, ASH and the Irish Heart Foundation. I remember being touched by correspondence I received from Dr. Fintan Howell of the Irish Medical Organisation, which outlined that 7,000 of our citizens die annually from smoking related diseases. This is a terrible scandal. If the same figure applied to deaths from road, building site or waterway accidents, the nation would search high and low for a solution to the cause.

I was also interested to read the fact — one has to assume it is a fact when it is printed on ASH paper — that smoking kills six times more people in Ireland each year than road accidents, work accidents, drugs, murder, suicides and AIDS combined. That scared me. If the figure was a quarter of that, there would be uproar, but we sit and take it. As there is a battle on and we face opposition, people seek compromise, but there cannot be any compromise on smoking. The best compromise on smoking is not a compromise at all but an outright ban. I ask those who seek a compromise to think about what they are doing. Are all their concerns really commercial and are they putting them ahead of their workers' health? Do they honestly believe that hotel and bar workers are not entitled to the protection in the workplace that the rest of us enjoy? Do they honestly believe that there can be a compromise on health?

I went through the Bill to find out what I might say today that was different from what I had said in the past because one feels one is repeating oneself and has said everything before. I know people do not remember it, but one feels that one is giving the same speech as seven or eight months ago. I was touched to see that the smallest amount of cigarettes that will be allowed to be sold in a packet will be 20. That will have a positive effect on those who try to buy cigarettes. I had a grin on my face when I saw that provision because I remember, when I was at secondary school, going into the shop on the corner when I went home for lunch in the middle of the day, buying loose cigarettes and putting them in the little geometry pencil box that I had in those days. If the cigarettes stayed in there for two or three days, how sick one felt after smoking stale tobacco. I am so glad teenagers now do not have to stoop so low as to carry loose cigarettes.

The Bill is beneficial. I am the mother of four young adults — they are not so much teenagers — and three of them, to my detriment, are smokers; I hate to see them smoke. My 21 year old son said the other day that he was dying for 29 March to come because it meant that he would start saving, as he will no longer be able to spend the money that he is spending on cigarettes. That gives me confidence that the ban will work.

As Senator Henry and Senator Feighan said, confectioners will now have to get rid of the little boxes of sweet cigarettes. I remember them too. As young girls of six years of age, we would go around with them in our mouths and stand in front of mirrors looking at ourselves with the things in our mouths and practising how to smoke the real ones. It is no wonder that so many of us smoked. We would even sharpen the ends of them and make them redder than they were when they came out of the box. The boxes had all sorts of cards in them, which meant that we were collecting cards as well as buying the packets of sweet cigarettes.

As I said, 29 March will be a watershed in many people's lives. On the third floor of this building, where my office is located, there is one Senator who likes a cigarette. I am sure that he is watching the debate on the monitor. I said to him that I betted he would give them up and he told me to go into the Chamber and tell the House that he was waiting for 29 March to come because he is going to quit. I know several people who are using 29 March as the day that they will go cold turkey.

In March last year, in the run-up to the date that was to be set for the smoking ban, we said the same things. The advertising we have seen has been extremely effective, especially the graphic billboards to which we have become used around the country that show blood seeping from a brain. As a non-smoker, I find that difficult to cope with so I can only imagine what it is doing to somebody who is smoking up to 40 cigarettes a day.

We need not worry about how the ban might be policed. I doubt whether we will make much money from the penalties that are to be imposed on those who are found to be in breach of the ban because smoking has become so antisocial that smokers are feeling intimidated; they do not like being the only one or two in a large group who is smoking. Senator Henry is smiling. She said that she looked forward to seeing how the ban would work in the bars in the Oireachtas and I suppose she really means the Members' bar. I feel the ban will police itself there because so many of us are non-smokers that the smokers will feel hugely uncomfortable lighting up in front of us.

It is terribly sad to see the amount of young women who smoke nowadays. We are all aware of it. My eyes are drawn to it the whole time because I have two young daughters, who are aged 17 and 18 respectively, who are not allowed to smoke in front of me. I do not want to hear about them smoking, but I know that they are smokers. I see other young girls like them smoking on the street or outside buildings. For whatever reason, it seems that a higher percentage of girls smoke than boys. Perhaps the girls feel that it is cool, chic or sexy, but boys do not seem to be as foolhardy about damaging their health as young women.

I commend the Minister for bringing the Bill before the Seanad. I am glad that we have got to the point at which it will be brought into law.