Seanad debates

Thursday, 18 April 2013

Public Health (Tobacco) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Second Stage

 

12:15 pm

Photo of Colm BurkeColm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I welcome the Public Health (Tobacco) (Amendment) Bill 2013, which has arisen on foot of the European Court of Justice ruling on minimum pricing. The Minister went through the figures. It is amazing that there has not been a substantial decrease, in real terms, in the number of people who smoke. We still seem to have a problem with people in the younger age group. They are continuing to support the trade of the tobacco companies despite the statistics mentioned by the Minister. Some 5,000 deaths a year are directly related to people smoking. Approximately 50% of all long-term smokers will die prematurely. That is a huge number in real terms when one considers the overall percentage of people in the country who are smokers.

When I did some reading on this issue, I was interested to find that in 2008, the most recent year for which statistics are available, approximately 36,000 hospital admissions were directly related to people's smoking habits. I presume that annual figure has not really changed. Smoking is a huge drain on our medical services from general practitioner level right through to the hospital system. We have to do a great deal of work to try to reduce the number of smokers in this country. The Minister referred specifically to younger people in this context. I was interested to her somebody suggest that the slogan "kiss a smoker - taste the difference" should be used to discourage younger people from smoking. I am not sure whether it would work, but it might be a new and useful way of getting our message to young people.

I am awaiting the outcome of a study I commissioned to measure the responses of young people to the graphic images that are now being displayed on cigarette packets. International studies show that these images should have an effect. I decided to undertake a study of how young people in Ireland will react to them. I will be interested to see what the results of the survey will be. It is important for us to continue to support research aimed at reducing the number of people who smoke. As I said earlier during a debate on organ donation at the Joint Committee on Health and Children, there is a huge need for a public awareness campaign in relation to these matters. Over a ten-year period, a very proactive road safety campaign brought about some very good results. We probably need to review how we are managing our campaign aimed at discouraging people from smoking. We need to continue to research how we can ensure there is a reduction in the number of people starting to smoke. Equally, we need to help those who smoke to move away from their problems. As Senator Ó Domhnaill said, it is not easy for anyone who smokes to move away from cigarettes. It is a huge task and a huge obstacle for them.

We should be doing everything possible to provide those people with the varied medical assistance they need.

With regard to the court decision, it was interesting to read:

...the Court adds that the prohibition on fixing minimum prices does not prevent Member States from prohibiting the sale of manufactured tobacco at a loss, so long as the freedom of manufacturers or importers to determine the maximum retail selling prices for their products is not undermined. Those economic actors will not be able, in that case, to absorb the impact of the taxes on those prices by selling their products at a price below the sum of the cost price and all taxes.
While the European Court of Justice states we cannot impose minimum prices, we can make sure we prohibit the sale of manufactured tobacco at a loss, which is important.

The figures on the amount of tobacco coming in from abroad are interesting, with some 6% of the market accounted for by legal cross-border purchases and 14% by illegal sales. It is an area we really need to tackle and every assistance should be given to the Garda and the Revenue authorities to ensure the amount of cigarettes on the market illegally is reduced considerably.

I recently spoke to a medical practitioner who was holding a high-risk pregnancy clinic and was astonished to find the high level of smoking among people who were pregnant. In fact, one patient acknowledged she had reduced smoking from 300 cigarettes a week to 200. The issue here is the danger caused to the foetus in the long term. We need a campaign in this area given that there are still a high number of women who continue to smoke while pregnant, despite all the warnings. It is interesting how those patients end up having to be dealt with in the high-risk clinics.

I welcome the Bill and I know the Minister has a number of other Bills in this area coming down the road. They will certainly receive the support of this House because anything we can do to help reduce the number of people who are smoking in this country is welcome, and it also helps to reduce the overall cost of the health budget in the coming years.

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