Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I applaud my friend and colleague, Senator Crown, on his initiative and on his continuing efforts to thwart the multifaceted efforts of the tobacco industry to deny that this is a health issue. Senator Crown, who is working at the heart of this tragedy, referred to statistics. I have some statistics of my own which I hope are complementary to his. Fourteen people died yesterday because of smoking; another 14 will die today for the same reason. Tomorrow, another 14 will die, and so it goes on.

This Bill strictly limits the possible interactions which may occur between public officials, any member of the Government, their employees or advisers and members of the tobacco industry, their professional agents or the people they fund. Offences will be prosecuted by the Garda Síochána. The directors of bodies corporate will be held accountable for the actions of their organisations.

The background to this Bill is the World Health Organization framework convention on tobacco control, the first treaty negotiated under the auspices of the WHO. It was developed in response to the globalisation of the tobacco epidemic. Other factors such as global marketing, transnational tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship and the international movement of contraband and counterfeit cigarettes have also contributed to the explosive increase in tobacco use.

The treaty, which is now closed for signature, had 168 signatories, including the European Community which makes it one of the most widely embraced treaties in UN history. The convention entered into force in February 2005, just 90 days after it had been acceded to, ratified, accepted or approved by 40 States, an unprecedented development in the history of the UN treaties. It shows that the vast majority of countries want to do something serious about the tobacco epidemic.

In this country the tobacco industry cost the State €1 billion more in health costs than the Exchequer collects in taxes annually. I repeat, it costs the State €1 billion more in health care costs than the Exchequer collects in taxes annually. In Ireland the tobacco industry must attract 50 new smokers a day to replace those who die or quit. Most of these are children who go on to be lifetime smokers and half of whom will later die from their addiction.

It is indisputable that there is a fundamental and reconcilable conflict between the tobacco industry's interests and public health policy interests. The Irish Cancer Society tells us that the tobacco industry is trying everything it can to derail efforts designed to stop Irish people dying from smoking. The tobacco industry has been so successful at marketing its product to young people here that children start smoking at a younger age than in any other country in Europe.

Five months after his meeting with big tobacco players, the Minister for Finance imposed a derisory 10 cent increase on the price of a packet of 20 cigarettes. However, in the same budget he made health insurance more expensive. Increasing the price of cigarettes is one of the most effective ways to encourage people to quit but it is unlikely that many smokers will consider a 10 cent increase to be a deterrent. There must be concern that such a pathetic increase in tobacco tax was driven by big tobacco's argument that high prices lead to smuggling. As Senator Crown pointed out, smuggling is not the result of high prices. Some countries where legal cigarettes are low in price also have a very high smuggling rate.

What about the tobacco lobby itself? Senator Barrett made reference to the voting and intensive efforts surrounding the vote on 8 October that came about as a result of the initiatives put forward by the Minister present, as President of Council, in the first half of this year. An Irish official, on the Friday before the vote, briefed journalists on condition of anonymity. He said:

There is an unprecedentedly intense lobbying campaign from the industry going on inside the European Parliament with the express intention of trying to frustrate this legislation. This is completely on a scale way beyond lobbying that normally goes on.

He said officials had been surprised to discover that cigarette manufacturers and their lobbyists had knowledge of precise elements of the law barely 24 hours after they were agreed behind closed doors. He continued: "The level of lobbying at the moment exceeds any campaign that has gone on in the parliament in recent years". The aim of the legislation is to combat smoking among the young and cut down on the estimated 700,000 EU citizens who die of tobacco-related causes each year. In an unusual move, of which the Minister was part of, a joint statement was issued on the same Friday that urged the European Parliament to begin negotiating with EU governments on the legislation as quickly as possible in order to finalise the law by the end of the year.

I shall give an indication of just how strong and powerful the tobacco lobby is in the United Stated. In 2010, which is the last year I could find figures for, the tobacco industry spent a whopping $16.6 million on lobbyists to represent the industry to Congress. In Alberta, more than 20 people, including several former government staffers, are registered in the Province of Alberta as official lobbyists for tobacco companies or affiliated organisations. At least half of the registrations have been made within the past ten months after the US Government announced that it was working on new legislation.

In the US, the tobacco industry's success at winning from Congress what it wanted while still providing law makers with an opportunity to appear to be all in favour of health was a brilliant stroke. The industry brought it off because the tobacco lobby employed an unusually skilled and well-organised strategy; because it hired some of the best legal brains and best-connected people in Washington to help with the fight; and because it successfully grafted onto its built-in congressional strength from tobacco-producing states a sufficient number of congressmen to whom the issue was not surprisingly one of health, or even of the tobacco industry, but one of curbing the powers of regulatory agencies. In other words, they decided to go after big government and to forget about all the people who are dying as a result of smoking. They managed to succeed in throwing a heavy smokescreen around the health issue.

If ever there was a need to ensure accountability and transparency in the relationship, that inevitably arises between any outside body and government, it has to be the one between the insidious tobacco industry and Government at the highest level in this country. It is for that reason I applaud and, on behalf of my party, commend the Bill to the House.