Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State. Fine Gael will support his legislation, in line with our support for the rationalisation of State organisations. It is important, however, that the message goes out from this House today that our battle to address tobacco addiction is far from finished and remains a huge challenge to our health, education and wider social system.

I will speak later of what the WHO says at this point on the worldwide challenge of dealing with this issue and the tobacco industry. It is also focusing increasingly on the effects of second hand smoke. That is very important. The WHO quotes a frightening figure and awareness of this in this country is not high. More than 600,000 deaths per year are caused by second hand smoke worldwide, more than 1% of all deaths and of those, 165,000 deaths are of children. Smokers are not only putting themselves at risk, they are placing at risk 1.8 billion non-smokers. The statistics are frightening. Women and children are disproportionately affected and there is major regional variation. Policy makers are being urged to take action to protect the population from exposure to second-hand smoke. We need effective policies in this regard and that is a challenge we must meet. We must treat the effects of tobacco and smoking more seriously.

It is important we recognise the positive steps that have been taken in this country, which the Minister of State listed in her address. Some of the targets in the strategy, Towards a Tobacco Free Society, have been met, as acknowledged by the Irish Cancer Society. The Office of Tobacco Control, which first received statutory status in 2002, has played an important role in meeting these targets. In discussing a rationalisation such as this, it is important to acknowledge the work that has been done. The people in that office were proactive and the issue had a high priority at one time in our health policies, although it does not to the same extent now. It can be quite disappointing for people who have worked in an area and given priority to it to find themselves subsumed into a larger body such as the HSE. I pay tribute to the staff of the Office of Tobacco Control and I hope the valuable work they have been doing will continue and will be given priority.

This office has compiled significant data on the level of compliance with tobacco legislation and on the attitudes of the public, particularly young people, towards smoking. The subsuming of the Office of Tobacco Control into the HSE should not be perceived as a lack of commitment to tackling the issues surrounding tobacco. Despite all the efforts and welcome initiatives, the rate of smoking in Ireland remains high, and we have serious work to do in health promotion and the provision of education and information on the effects of smoking, particularly to young people and women.

As we have seen over the years, the money put into advertising by the tobacco industry to target different sections of society, particularly women, has been effective. The Government must be aware that we are dealing with a large industry, and its message must be strong. We need to redouble our efforts to tackle this serious public health issue. Obviously, there are many priorities in public health and health promotion, but this is a key one. I have already quoted statistics on the appalling effects of second-hand smoking. Our health service spends a fortune on treating tobacco-related illnesses - I have heard a figure of €2 billion. The health budget is approximately €15 billion per year. Does the Minister of State agree with that assessment? In these hard economic times, the economic benefit of reducing the level of smoking is clear.

We need to hear answers to the following questions from the Minister of State. The current HSE service plan has no specific target of reducing smoking prevalence. Will this change in the new service plan, and what targets does she envisage? Will the Minister instruct the HSE to produce a new national strategy to reduce smoking prevalence and build on the work of the report, Towards a Tobacco Free Society?

There is another serious issue, which also applies to other areas about which we are concerned. In the current economic climate, community-based smoking cessation programs have been severely cut. The impact of these cuts on achieving reductions in smoking will be serious. We all know how difficult it is for people to give up smoking, and what is clear from the research is that a multifaceted approach is required, with advice and support from friends and good quality information. Being part of a group such as a smoking cessation program can help. If some of those elements are not available to people, it will be much more difficult for them to stop smoking.

The number of calls to the National Smokers' Quitline has gone down. This is not because people have stopped smoking or do not need help; it is because there is less advertising and, like anything, if people do not know the service is available, they will not make the call. This telephone service is a point of information and contact which is available to people who need it.

I have already talked about the cost of smoking-related illnesses, which is substantial. Around 6,000 people die every year from smoking-related illnesses and statistics indicate that 1 million people in Ireland smoke. Smoking is the biggest cause of preventable deaths in Ireland, causing 30% of all cancers, including 95% of lung cancers. What we know about lung cancer is that it is very slow to be detected and late diagnoses are common. In many people, lung cancer has developed to quite a degree before a diagnosis is given. It is frightening to see that more and more women are dying from lung cancer. In fact, we are about to pass the point at which more women will die from lung cancer than from breast cancer.

This is a serious public health issue for women and men and continues to demand our attention, our priority and our public money because its consequences are so serious. Sometimes it is dismissed as though it does not have public health implications. People say it is a question of personal choice and it is not that serious, but we should be far beyond that point based on the quality of the research we have available to us about the impact of smoking.

Now is not the time to take our eye off the ball in tackling the use of tobacco products. I stand shoulder to shoulder with the Government in its commitment to the objective of reducing the use of tobacco products. The Bill must pass today only with assurances that the fight against tobacco and smoking will not be diminished as a result of the measures contained in it and that a new strategy and specific targets will be established.

The selling of smuggled cigarettes is increasingly common. I have seen this in my own area of Clondalkin, where people drop leaflets advertising the sale of illegal cigarettes and alcohol door-to-door without any regulation. We saw a serious report on this on "Prime Time" the other night in which the links between cigarette smuggling and drug trafficking were clearly laid out. We are not talking about young children who want to make some extra money. This is part of a big, illegal industry which is linked to trafficking of women and the importation of drugs. It is not something that should be ignored; it demands our resources and attention. We also saw in the programme that such cigarettes contain very dangerous substances. I believe people in this country are not aware that when they buy smuggled cigarettes the material contained in them is dangerous to their health. This is something that must be tackled seriously. ASH has put out information recently about a dedicated free telephone line for members of the public to report details or concerns about the smuggling of cigarettes. ASH states that the availability of smuggled cigarettes not only affects the economy but represents a significant health risk and supports organised crime. The sale and importation of smuggled cigarettes must be seen as an activity of major international criminal gangs. That is what is going on and it must be tackled. Members of the public need to know about this confidential free telephone line.

I welcome the provisions of the legislation, which makes sense as part of the rationalisation of State agencies, but we must continue to prioritise the valuable work that was done by this organisation when it was not under the control of the HSE but was an independent body. Its work remains vital and I hope this is acknowledged within the HSE.