John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Acting Chairman to inform me when my time is up as I am pressing for a vote. I thank the Minister. I do not like to be cast in an adversarial role with him vis-à-vis any tobacco control issue, as I know his heart is absolutely in the right place. I wish to thank two other people tonight. I pay very special thanks to Senator White for coming in tonight - I am very grateful to her. I also acknowledge the work Senator O'Donnell did earlier in highlighting other problems relating to lobbying, which helped to put the lobbying question on the agenda.

The Minister's arguments against the Bill seem to fall along four main lines: it is unprecedented and we would be the first; we are disproportionately criminalising; it is unconstitutional; and he plans to introduce similar reforms anyway. Being first is good. Prior to 1964 no government had ever stated as government policy that smoking caused cancer or acknowledged a link. The US Surgeon General was the first person to do so in 1964; he was not the last. In 2004, Deputy Martin was the first Minister for Health and Children to have an entire country rendered smoke-free in the workplace. He was the first - there was no precedent - but he was not the last. This is now the norm throughout the world. In 2013, Australia was the first country to state it would introduce a blanket ban on pictorial logo depictions on cigarettes and to introduce mandatory plain packaging; it will not be the last. I am very happy and proud that Ireland, under the Minister's leadership, will be the second and we will not be the last. This will be the policy in many countries around the world.

Similarly with lobbying, let us be the first; I promise we will not be the last. If we pass this Bill, it will ring around the world as another onslaught in the worldwide battle against tobacco and recognition of the problem lobbying causes in Washington, Brussels, Strasbourg, London, Tokyo, Dublin and elsewhere.

On criminality, we have already criminalised certain aspects of smoking-related behaviour. We have criminalised advertising. A company cannot advertise tobacco products in the broadcast media. We have criminalised the sale of tobacco to children. We have criminalised smoking in the workplace. We have done all this before. There is nothing unprecedented about us criminalising illicit contacts between Government officials and the tobacco industry. On the disproportionality of the criminality, let us be blunt; the tobacco industry imposed the death penalty on our citizens. There is nothing disproportionate about us criminalising any part of its activities.

What about the constitutionality? Is it wrong or illicit for us to ban assembly or speech? We do it all the time. We do not allow politicians to discuss criminal cases with judges. We sequester juries completely to keep them away. There are plenty of precedents for limiting for society's benefit what would otherwise be untrammelled freedom of speech.

The last part of this is the most painful part and I ask the Minister not to take it personally. I, better than most, have some understanding of how difficult it is to get health reforms to work through that gluey, treacly bureaucracy that is our health system. The Minister has told us he opposes the Bill because he will introduce something else. Sadly, the track record is not great in this regard. It is nearly two years since we initiated the Protection of Children’s Health from Tobacco Smoke Bill. I just do not trust the bureaucracy to let this thing happen quickly enough.

In addition, people have talked about smoke-free campuses. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children voted against making the Houses of the Oireachtas a smoke-free campus. That committee had another vote recently - I will not go into who voted which way - to invite representatives of the tobacco to address the committee, which I very much oppose. If we buy into the line that we cannot do this because we might face a subsequent legal challenge, we are laying ourselves down prostrate in the face of legal intimidation by the tobacco companies. When their arguments that smoking does not cause cancer and that nicotine is not addictive were shown to be spurious, they then resorted to all these legal challenges.

Let a message ring out from Seanad Éireann, from Oireachtas Éireann, from Dublin, from our democracy that we are going to tackle the problem of tobacco lobbying and introduce a strategy which I know will be copied and emulated around the world. I commend the Bill to the House.