David Norris (Independent)

-----the smoking ban. The previous Government, which was of a similar complexion to this one, introduced several good measures which I have never denied. The smoking ban was remarkable and put Ireland to the forefront of world policy. Ireland was the first state in the world to implement such a ban, a fact of which we should be very proud. Not only that, we got away it. At the time, it was believed the Irish people would not tolerate such a ban. It was claimed their subversive streak would come out and the ban would be so substantially undermined that a mockery would be made of it. That never happened. The next thing, other countries were following Ireland's example.

I hope through this debate we can encourage those involved in the Office of Tobacco Control to continue the same policies and be as successful as they have been in the past. I assume there will be a specific dedicated unit in the general framework which will target tobacco consumption.

I am glad I had the opportunity to place on the record my suspicions of the tobacco industry and that tobacco smuggling is used by the industry to get into the political system. It allows them to lobby while wringing their hands claiming it is dreadful they are being undermined by smuggling. Such claims are rubbish. It allows them to undermine the arguments for an increase in prices which is what will seriously inhibit smoking.

It is exactly the same with the drinks industry. The drinks industry is very powerful and needs to be watched as it too does not have the health interests of this country at heart. An academic study should be carried out of the subliminal impact of its hypocritical blather in its advertisements about remembering to drink sensibly. Its message when decoded says one will be a sexually potent, wonderful, beautiful and intelligent person, have the party of one's life and the more one drinks, the better it will be, but, PS, drink carefully. If it is going to have that effect, why the hell would one drink carefully? One would slosh it all down as hard as one could and have a real orgy of a good time. That is the drinks industry's message. They should not be allowed to get away with that hypocrisy like the tobacco industry has effected in penetrating the Houses of the Oireachtas with its deliberately false message.