Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

I am conflicted in regard to this legislation in that I am disappointed with it. I welcome the provisions of it but smoking is such a carcinogenic activity for anybody to engage in and many Senators have illustrated the number of people who are grievously affected by it. It is a huge imposition not only on people's health but also on their financial position and on the Exchequer at large because of the consequential health issues.

Only four weeks ago I attended the funeral of a good friend of mine, Paddy Quinn, who died from emphysema. He made a great contribution to New Ross through many different economic and tourism initiatives. The John F. Kennedy Trust, established the Dunbrody Famine Ship at New Ross, is a huge tourist attraction and has just been injected with €2.5 million from Fáilte Ireland to enhance it, and Paddy Quinn was a champion of that project. My mother died from a smoking-related disease, from lung cancer which spread to her brain.

Therefore, I believe this Bill comes directly from the school of lazy legislation. I know it was introduced last year and there have been many changes worldwide in the situation since then. This Bill reflects a minimalist approach to the issue. All we are doing is enacting Commission decisions which have been taken and which we are obliged to include in our legislation. That is a pity. The scope exists for doing more. I do not know from where Senator Cullinane got the notion that I thought there was no room for greater fiscal initiatives in this area. I believe there is scope for that. We are dealing with an industry, the tobacco industry, which is fundamentally corrupt. It has had substantial evidence for many decades, which it suppressed, on the effects of smoking and the health risks people take when they smoke.

If one travels abroad, particularly to undeveloped countries or emerging democracies where income levels are quite poor, one will observe that the industry targets disadvantaged people to get them addicted to smoking. It includes not only arsenic but many dangerous chemicals in compiling the product, which are highly addictive. It is done for one reason and one reason only, commercial purposes, with total disregard for any ethical or other human obligations which the companies should have if they were responsible corporations which they are not.

My criticism of the legislation is on foot of a further recent initiative in this respect was taken by the Australian Government. We were the first country to ban smoking in the workplace, which was done in the face of considerable opposition not only from the industry but elsewhere. I remember heated parliamentary party meetings in our own party where people were totally against it. I thought Deputy Micheál Martin, who was Minister for Health at the time, showed a great deal of courage and initiative in bringing in the ban. I want to see the same courage and commitment reflected now in the political leadership of the Department of Health. There is no reason we could not have gone the road that Australia has gone and prohibited the manufacturers from putting their names on the packets of cigarettes. That would have been a step in the direction which would have led to a further decline, particularly in smoking and in the different brands of tobacco products, but we failed to do that. I understand that the Philip Morris tobacco company is proceeding to take legal action in Australia as a consequence of the Australian initiative but we need to be strong, courageous and tough enough to withstand that. People are dying in Ireland today and more will die tomorrow, Thursday and on Friday from diseases caused by smoking. We have an obligation to tackle this issue in an effective way and to go as far as we possibly can to try to eradicate it.

As a parent I take a little pride in an achievement in this area. Unlike Senator Mooney, I did not smoke, so I am not a reformed smoker. My wife and I were so anti-smoking that we inculcated that into our children and none of them smoked. If we never did anything else for them, we did them a great service by getting them to that state. We need to encourage that kind of thing, but we need more initiatives than purely transferring EU Commission decisions into legislation. I am seeking greater innovation in the future. I realise the Minister of State is not in the position for very long, but I ask her to apply her mind to this. It goes to the heart of our responsibility as legislators to the public and to their healthy well being.