Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House, as he always does. I have no difficulty in supporting the legislation. We look forward to further improvements to finally weed out the use of tobacco, the effects of which have probably touched everybody's family at some stage. My mother and three of her younger brothers all died before their time as a direct result of smoking and lung cancer. I smoked and struggled to get off cigarettes, but, thankfully, eight years later I have not looked back. As a smoker, I opposed the smoking ban within the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party and how wrong I was because there was no way I would have succeeded in getting off cigarettes without the ban. In bars, it would have been too easy to reach out and take one. This is a further step in weeding it out. I agree with the Minister that the smuggling issue is a red herring.

While it does not arise under this Bill, I am interested in what the Minister takes from the Scottish legislation on minimum pricing of alcohol. We have work to do in that regard.