Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 4, before section 3, to insert the following new section:
"3.--The Minister may designate a rate of non-smoker discount to be applied to health insurance premiums.".

We have discussed these matters thoroughly. We have tried to have information campaigns to tell people the dangers. I hope the proceedings of the Seanad today are noted because of the amount of information the Minister has placed before us on the damage tobacco can do. The laws on where smoking can take place have had an impact. We are winning but perhaps at a slower pace than we would wish.

I realise Senator Norris spoke against the amendment before I even moved it but it states: "The Minister may designate a rate of non-smoker discount". It is for consideration in the Minister's tobacco control policy. We have dealt with advertising and with laws and we are going in the right direction. Doctors would know if someone was a smoker. With inspection of someone's lungs, throat and mouth, it is pretty easy to see if he or she is a smoker.

The third part of this troika of anti-smoking measures, which includes the information campaigns and the laws on where one can smoke, is a financial incentive to giving up smoking. The Minister has been under pressure from other quarters on the rapid rise in health insurance premiums. I know there is a principle of universalism there but could we envisage a situation where giving up smoking would mean cash in one's hand? Could we persuade young people to spend the money on something else because the Minister for Health had designed a scheme to reward them? Is this the kind of inducement the Minister, his colleagues and his advisers think would be a good one to include the tobacco control policy, that is, if one gives up smoking, one would be better off financially in addition to all the other benefits which the Minister enunciated for us?