Mark Duffy (Fine Gael)

The Minister of State is very welcome to the House. The matter I am raising is one I have raised regularly in the House and which has been raised very regularly with me by members of community youth groups like the No Name Club and Foróige and I have also observed it myself. It is the proliferation of vaping, especially vape shops, across every town and village in Ireland. It happened very quickly, so obviously regulation has not caught up with it. My point this morning is that tobacco regulations should be expanded to include vaping products. Just yesterday evening I noticed in a shop that the space behind the counter where the tobacco advertising used to be, which is now concealed and covered, displays branding for disposable vapes. We need to remove single-use vapes but we also need to remove the product placement from such prominent positions in shops, as this encourages vaping.

We do not know the health risks of it. We did not know the health risks of tobacco in the early days but we have learned how devastating that was. We do not know what the full effects of vaping may mean in the long term. It needs to be treated very seriously and that is why I have raised it. A key aspect is the placement of the products, particularly in shops that are dedicated to vaping and encouraging the use of vaping products. The association with candy and sweets is clearly a cynical move to target young people in particular to use it as a stepping stone or to get them addicted to vaping products. We need to have strong regulation on this and treat it like tobacco. People can still have a choice but vaping cannot be proliferated and done in a cynical way that is targeting young and vulnerable people. As well as that, the variety of flavours is very targeted at young people and tries to make it as accessible and attractive as possible even though this is an addictive substance.

I would welcome support on tackling this, tackling the decline of our high streets due to presence of these vaping shops and also the cynical efforts being made to attract our young people to vaping. I welcome the Minister of State's feedback on it.