John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Why do otherwise rational people continue to smoke when it is contrary to their own self-interest? To put it simply, it is addiction. Tobacco companies must recruit 50 new tobacco addicts daily just to replace the deaths that are caused by their own products. In 80% of cases, these novice smokers are children. Big tobacco will deny the reality that its business plan can be summed up in four words: "addict children to carcinogens". Big tobacco wants more people to start smoking and wants existing smokers to keep smoking, whereas public health policy is aimed at reducing and ultimately eliminating tobacco use and putting the tobacco industry out of business in the process. For these reasons, the goals of public health and those of big tobacco are fundamentally incompatible. Their relationship must be perpetually adversarial and unremittingly hostile. How else could a responsible Government react to an industry that is responsible for the deaths of thousands of its citizens?

Big tobacco is not and cannot be the Government's partner in any sort of enterprise. Big tobacco has just one agenda: it wants to sell tobacco. It is incredibly rich and terrifyingly powerful. Its worldwide sales of 350 billion cigarettes translate into profits of €35 billion. It is not surprising that big tobacco does everything in its power to thwart the tobacco control policies of democratic Governments. Historically, its weapons were the denial of health risks and spurious pseudo-research. For many years, and in the face of a crushing weight of evidence, it absurdly contended that smoking does not cause cancer. When an increasingly sophisticated population began to reject big tobacco's lies, it turned to more subtle weapons, including lobbying, legal intimidation and bribery.

During Ireland's EU Presidency, the Minister for Health's innovative pan-European anti-smoking proposals were watered down following intense lobbying of parliamentarians. The New York Times reported recently that American tobacco companies, cognisant of the fact that their traditional markets in western countries are continuing to shrink, are actively attempting to undermine efforts to introduce anti-smoking legislation in developing countries. Uruguay and Namibia have found themselves facing multi-billion euro lawsuits and years of litigation. The reach of big tobacco is such that it has managed to enlist some very strange allies. The US Chamber of Commerce has campaigned against the Minister's plain packaging laws. It is rumoured that officials from the US Government have expressed displeasure with the Minister's innovative proposal to introduce plain packaging.

The World Health Organization of the United Nations has passed a directive to provide an appropriately transparent framework for the conduct of meetings between Governments and the industry in situations where such meetings are felt to be unavoidable. Ireland is a signatory. The directive strongly discourages such meetings, stating that there is a fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the interests of the tobacco industry and those of public policy. It stipulates that where interactions with the tobacco industry are necessary, they should be conducted transparently, preferably in public. Ireland has signed up to this convention, but I fear that it has not always lived up to it.

Senators will recall that the heads of the leading tobacco companies, as represented by the Irish Tobacco Manufacturers Advisory Committee, managed to get a 45-minute private audience with the Taoiseach and the Ministers for Finance and Justice and Equality earlier this year. I refer specifically to Steven Donaldson, Andrew Meagher and John Freda, who are the chiefs of PJ Carroll, John Player and Japan Tobacco International, respectively. The Minister for Health wisely and correctly declined to attend. I commend him for his wisdom in this regard. This meeting was ostensibly an opportunity for these businessmen to inform the Government of their concerns regarding tobacco smuggling. It was described by a spokesman for the Irish Tobacco Manufacturers Advisory Committee as "very positive". Worryingly, it was reported that other matters were discussed, including the industry's opposition to the Minister for Health's proposals to tighten the anti-smoking regulations, for example by banning menthol roll-ups. These issues, rather than the issue of smuggling, are the ones that are close to the industry's heart and constitute its real agenda.

How did this meddling cartel of drug dealers get access to senior Fine Gael Ministers? Which lobbyists could pull off a stunt like this? The Irish Tobacco Manufacturers Advisory Committee's public relations activities are handled by Hall Communications and its anti-smuggling campaign is managed by O'Herlihy Communications, which was founded by Bill O'Herlihy. Mr. O'Herlihy, who has extensive Fine Gael connections and who acted as public relations adviser to my personal hero in Irish politics, the late Dr. Garret FitzGerald, also attended this meeting. In two years in Leinster House, I have succeeded in scheduling exactly one 20-minute formal meeting with the Minister for Health to discuss cancer research. I tried to lobby the Minister for Finance to remove VAT from cancer-preventing sunblock in a rushed whispered conversation in the Dáil Visitors' Gallery. I would kill to get 45 minutes of facetime with the Taoiseach and other senior Ministers.

Given that the Taoiseach and these Ministers are good men who would support tobacco control, how did this meeting happen? The smuggling explanation just does not wash. After all, the principal commercial victims of tobacco smuggling are retailers, not manufacturers.

Smuggling does not hurt big tobacco. Big tobacco likes and benefits from smuggling. How does this happen? In the majority of cases, the smuggled products are the companies' own products ultimately purchased at full price from them. The purpose of smuggling is not to deny the companies their commercial profit but to deny the Exchequer tax revenue. Furthermore, the availability of cheap cigarettes sold in an unregulated environment facilitates the recruitment of new under age child and teenage smokers. I would go further. If the Government genuinely thought this meeting was about smuggling, it was duped. I believe this is what happened. There was also likely a degree of social pressure, doing a good turn for a lobbyist who was a loyal party activist in his day.

This legislation, which directly translates into law an international agreement to which we signed up, would have the effect of clarifying any ambiguity over any contacts of this type. It would eliminate the ambiguity which facilitated the Government meeting the Irish Tobacco Manufacturers' Advisory Committee. It is simple and should be supported. This Bill does not ban meetings. That would be unconstitutional but the process is made transparent. There must be two weeks' notice and the attendees must be known in advance. The Minister for Health must nominate the chairperson of the meeting. The agenda of the meeting must be published in advance. Any deviation results in prosecution, which can result in fines and imprisonment. How could anyone oppose this Bill?

In this context, what is the track record of this Government, which has a campaigning and committed anti-tobacco Minister for Health, in respect of anti-smoking legislation? If this Bill is rejected, we will have a very strange league table for tobacco legislation in the lifetime of this Government by the end of 2013. After nearly three years in office, the Fine Gael-Labour coalition will have had the opportunity to deal with four pieces of tobacco control legislation. Two of these have been Private Members' Bills which I have introduced, one of which is today's Bill. The other Bill would have banned smoking in cars with children and was supported by Senators van Turnhout and Daly. I should mention that Senators Barrett and van Turnhout are my supporters and I am grateful to them for their support for today's Bill. The other two Bills have been Government Bills, only one of which has been passed into law. I understand how this has happened. It has not been the Minister's wish. I suspect he has done it through clenched teeth and with seething rage. The only Bill that has been passed has been one that has made it easier to sell cheap tobacco to kids. It was forced on us by the European authorities and the commercial authorities. Shame on them for making us do this.

I completely support the Minister's other Bill, which would introduce mandatory plain packaging with explicit health warnings. It is still working its way through the bureaucracy but it will not be law until 2014 at the earliest. Let us take a minute to talk about the proposal on smoking in cars containing children. That Bill was kindly agreed to by the Minister a year and a half ago and it is still terminally glued up in the bureaucracy. For that reason, I and Senators Daly and van Turnhout will be advancing it again tomorrow on Committee Stage.

The Minister has the opportunity to cement Ireland's reputation as an innovative country in tobacco control. The message from this Chamber will go out tonight because the forces of evil are looking at Ireland. We have had spurious pseudo-libertarian and pseudo-civil rights groups setting up meetings in this country and pressure is mounting from all sides from the lobbying groups because they realise that if we bring in really draconian and restrictive legislation, others will follow our precedent. I have a business card here. The name on it is Cheryl Cullen, who is corporate affairs manager at JTI Ireland Limited whose headquarters are on the Old Belgard Road in Tallaght. The phone number and e-mail address are available. This was found in the Seanad Chamber.

I commend this Bill. I earnestly implore the Minster to accept it. We have been very careful in framing the Bill legally to ensure it is within our Constitution. It is nothing we have not signed up to. All it does is enforce regulation and transparency in an area where very dark - literally smoke-filled room - activities take place.