Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Barrett for tabling the amendment. It is helpful to raise these matters in order that we can discuss them. In regard to smoking in cars, Senator Crown's proposal was to ban it where there are children in cars but that would be difficult to implement where, for instance, a 17 year old is driving a car and smoking.

It would be very difficult to implement in the case of a 17 year old who was driving a car and smoking. There might be some legal complications in that regard. We should ban smoking completely in cars, as opposed to aiming at banning smoking in cars in which children are travelling.

Senator Sean D. Barrett spoke about the connection to health insurance. I have previously raised the issue of the number of expectant mothers who continue to smoke, although I know GPs try to address it. I recently spoke to someone in a high risk pregnancy clinic who told me about a woman who smoked 300 cigarettes a week, which I believe was a reduction on the number she had been smoking. Is there information on the number of pregnant women who continue to smoke? Have we provided a detailed analysis of the harmful effects it has on the baby? I do not believe we have provided enough information in that regard. We have not had a major campaign on that issue.

We still have problems with alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Each year a number of babies experience delirium tremensafter being born owing to their mothers' level of alcohol consumption. Likewise with smoking, there are knock-on effects for babies when born. It is a real health issue that we need to address and we need to provide information for the public. While welcoming the Bill, it is important that we move as fast as possible on the other issues. We need to work hard on reducing the number of people who smoke. While we have introduced many changes in the past ten years, it has not made a substantial difference to the number of people who smoke. It is a major target for us at which to aim in the next ten years and we all have a part to play.

I thank Senator Sean D. Barrett for tabling his amendments which have given us the opportunity to think about how we should plan into the future. We need to start planning for how we will proactively deal with the issue in the next ten years.