Brendan Ryan (Labour)

It would be churlish not to commend the Minister. Speaking with my political hat and sharing a constituency with him, I am happier when his halo is a bit tarnished. It is not to my political advantage to have his halo reinstated. Nevertheless, the smoking ban was and is a good day's work. The Minister showed commendable bottle by not wavering. Others may have wavered but I do not think the Minister did, which was courageous.

I like the idea that we do things first. We are a modern, grown-up nation which no longer must wait to follow someone else's lead. We imposed the levy on plastic bags, which has been a remarkable success and about which people have been talking as they are now talking about this measure. It says to the world that this is a confident country which believes it can figure out ways to do things better, not just copy other people. We had a tendency to do this for a long time but we now do things the way we want to. While he said so tongue in cheek, the economist, Moore McDowell, pointed out that it will probably be more expensive in the long term for us to survive, because if we all live to be 90 by eliminating all environmental hazards, the cost to our children will be ferocious.

The tragedy of smoking is the amount of premature death it causes. If smoking causes people to die at 85 instead of 86 years, that would be a pity, but it would hardly be a tragedy. However, smoking causes people to die in their 40s, 50s and 60s, long before their natural life expectancy. Many people have had their lives ruined from their 50s on as a result of tobacco smoke. The money is one way of looking at it but the real issue is the impact smoking has on people's chances of living a long and healthy life.

It is time we began to look at the international tobacco industry as a particularly malign industry for selling a product which does no good to anyone. I am not being critical of individual smokers. I am married to a smoker so I must live with the reality of smoking. If tobacco were not addictive but something people consumed for pleasure, very little of it would last more than a couple of years because people would give it up. It is because it is addictive that it makes so much money. If one takes a step back and wonders about the idea of a multi-national industry that makes vast amounts of money from selling an addictive substance which can only harm people, then one gets into serious issues about ethics and ethical investments. If the Bank of Ireland is to be persuaded not to invest in the pornography industry, one could advance a very convincing case that similarly it ought not to be involved with any of the big tobacco companies. Whatever their economic record, their social contribution is malign. I have a great belief in letting consenting adults do whatever they wish as long as it does not impose burdens on the rest of us. I take exception to people fornicating in public, but what they do behind closed doors is entirely their own business. I will not give them lectures about what they should or should not do as long as it is done by free consenting adults. I am quite enthusiastic about many of these matters.

I do not believe anyone has a right to do something which poses a direct and demonstrable threat to other people, particularly when these people do not have a choice. Senator Brady put it very well. People are entitled to smoke and no one wants to stop them. I am not a prohibitionist — whenever it was tried it did not work — but I am a believer in reducing opportunities and demand and restricting supply. I accept the issue arose out of a legitimate and commendable concern for the health of people working in many areas, particularly the hospitality industry. I have no doubt the medium-term effect of this measure will be to reduce cigarette smoking because a good deal of it is associated with socialising. That one will end up sitting outside on one's own on a cold winter night if one wants to have a cigarette when visiting a pub, restaurant or night club will in the medium term reduce the degree to which people smoke and, as the habit is reduced, the possibility of people giving up smoking is increased.

How many billion euro does the EU currently spend on subsidising tobacco production? I think it is in double figures, but I am not sure. I know it costs billions. It appears irrational — I have every sympathy for the people involved in the production of tobacco — that we recognise a specific and major threat to public health posed by tobacco smoking, yet we subsidise its production. I cannot see the logic in that.

Other issues have arisen as a result of this debate. One is the fact that the hospitality industry, which at one stage appeared to be a united front, turned out to be anything but that. The restaurant association welcomed the measure from an early stage because it said the vast majority of its customers welcomed it. I am intrigued by the concept of non-enforceability which some publicans are putting forward. There is no doubt that most of the licensed trade now accepts the measure is a reality with which it must live, even though there are exceptions. In a letter to a newspaper, a writer pointed out to publicans who ask how the ban will be enforced that they can do it in the same way that they enforce the ban on people eating food on the premises that they did not buy there. No publican would tolerate a person doing that if food is served on his premises and if he can find many ways to enforce that prohibition, he can enforce another.

There will be occasional awkward moments but tobacco smoke will not result in violence being inflicted upon publicans. As in cinemas, theatres and all the other places we take for granted, in six months we will wonder how we ever tolerated the idea of smoky bars, where those of us who did not smoke ended up going home coughing with our clothes smelling of tobacco smoke.