Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I am delighted to be here to introduce the Public Health (Single-Use Vapes) Bill to this House. This is the first of two Bills we are bringing forward on vaping. This Bill is a short one with a single purpose, which is to ban the sale of disposable electronic cigarettes or vapes. Like many people here, I regularly hear from parents, teachers and coaches who are concerned about the impact that vapes and nicotine use are having on children’s health. The sight of discarded vapes littering our towns and villages is also a huge problem as they are harmful to the environment. Ireland has a long and proud history of tackling the public health issues caused by tobacco, dating back to our world-famous indoor smoking ban. This Bill will continue that tradition.

All of us have seen the rise in vaping among our young children and young people in recent years, particularly since single-use vapes hit the market. Our Healthy Ireland survey tells us vaping among 15- to 24-year-olds went from 4% in 2021 to 20% two years later. E-cigarette use by people who had never smoked went from one in 25 in 2021 to one in six by 2024. Again, young people aged 15 to 24 are the group most likely to vape despite never having smoked. This is strong evidence that young people who vape are more likely to go on to smoke. There is a great concern that a big rise in vaping among young people could impact our efforts to drive down smoking, which continues to be the biggest prevalent cause of death, disease and disability in our country. This Bill removes the cheapest, easiest to use and most environmentally harmful vapes from the market. These products are disproportionately used by young people. We are following several EU member states such as France, Belgium and Bulgaria, which have banned these products. In June last year, a ban came into effect in Northern Ireland. This Bill will mean we have an all-island response to this issue.

We are also bringing in a further law on nicotine-inhaling products and nicotine consumption products such as pouches. Last week, I introduced the Public Health (Tobacco Products and Nicotine Inhaling Products) (Amendment) Bill 2026 to the Dáil. For nicotine-inhaling products, that Bill will restrict the colours and imagery on packaging and on the devices themselves to make them less eye-catching and appealing to our children. The Bill will also ban the sale of devices resembling or functioning as other products such as toys or games. This is to ensure the Irish market does not progress into multi-use devices with features that would especially attract our young people. It will also restrict the flavours for sale and prohibit all flavour descriptors and language other than basic flavour names. This is to remove the marketing potential of the use of child-friendly flavour names.The point-of-sale display and advertising of these products in everyday supermarkets and convenience stores will also be prohibited in order that our children are not exposed to these products in their everyday lives. It will also make clear that these products are not the same as ordinary grocery goods.

This Bill has created a new category of products called "nicotine consumption products". This category includes pouches and any other products for recreational consumption of nicotine other than tobacco, nicotine-inhaling products and medical products. Any new products for recreational consumption of nicotine will automatically fall under this provision. It is also important that our law is future-proof so that we are not caught off guard by the next product that comes around the corner. Future nicotine consumption products will be prohibited for sale to persons under the age of 18. In addition, the display of these products at the point of sale in our general stores will be prohibited and advertising of these products in store will be banned in all retail outlets. We can all understand how a child might be attracted to vapes, with their colourful appearance, attractive flavours and flavour names and the variety on display in our ordinary grocery shops and newsagents. The new law will ensure that the visible presence of these products is reduced and it is made clear these products are not the same as ordinary groceries.

While we are acting now to protect our young people, EU-wide law would be most effective. The legislation must keep pace with a rapidly changing market to protect children and go further to drive down smoking rates across the EU. On 2 April the EU Commission published an evaluation report on a tobacco control legislation framework, including the tobacco products directive. This paves the way for a formal proposal for a revised directive. The Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, and I have committed that Ireland will do as much as it can to progress a revised directive if the proposal is published by the Commission during our EU Presidency. That would be really important for us. We are putting in place strong measures to reduce the appeal and availability of vapes and pouches to young people in Ireland and we hope there is more regulation to come at EU level.

The Bill before Senators is the first of these measures. There has been widespread support for this legislation in the Dáil and I look forward to our discussion on it. I will take Senators through the Bill to outline the content of each section. Part 1 relates to preliminary and general matters and contains sections 1 to 8. Section 1 provides for the Short Title of the Bill and for the commencement of its sections. Section 2 is the definition section and sets out the category of products that will be prohibited from sale under this Bill. It provides that a vape must be both refillable and rechargeable, or be otherwise designed and intended to be reused, to avoid the ban. Section 3 ensures that the Bill will not apply to medical devices, accessories for a medical device or medical products. Section 4 is a standard section providing for the residence of a body corporate or unincorporated persons. Section 5 provides power for the Minister for Health to make regulations as needed. It also provides that any regulations must be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas. Section 6 is a standard section providing for the service of documents. Section 7 provides for a six-month transition period from the commencement of the prohibition. This gives our supermarkets, convenience stores, specialist shops and others that sell these products six months to make whatever business arrangements are necessary to comply with this prohibition. Section 8 is a standard section on expenses.

Part 2 relates to the prohibition on single-use vapes and its enforcement and contains sections 9 to 13. Section 9 sets out the prohibition on the retail sale of single-use vapes in the State. It provides that it is an offence for any person to contravene it. Section 10 provides for the appointment of authorised officers for ensuring compliance with this Act. The Act will be enforced by our national environmental health service, which is the body that enforces the rest of our tobacco control and related law. Section 11 is a standard section that provides for the indemnification of the authorised officers. Section 12 provides for the powers of our environmental health officers to ensure compliance with the Act. This includes powers to enter a premises if there are reasonable grounds to believe that vapes will be found there or documents or other records relating to vapes; to inspect such premises and take copies of documents or records; to remove and detain any vape, or component of a vape, or any documents or records, where the officer has reasonable cause to suspect that there has been a contravention of this Act; and to require any person to provide relevant information, including for the purposes of ascertaining the ownership of websites. Section 13 provides for a prohibition notice in the case of contravention of section 9. A prohibition notice can direct a person that the contravention should cease immediately, require a single-use vape to be withdrawn or recalled from the market, or require that a single-use vape be disposed of or destroyed. The Bill provides for an appeal against a prohibition notice to the District Court within seven days. It also provides that if a prohibition notice has been served, but the contravention continues, the national environmental health service can apply for a High Court order to prohibit that continuation.

Part 3 is on penalties and miscellaneous provisions. It covers sections 14 to 20, inclusive. Section 14 provides for penalties for first and subsequent offences under the Act. A person guilty of an offence under the Act is liable for a first offence to a fine of up to €4,000, or to imprisonment for a term of up to six months, or to both. For any subsequent offence a guilty person is liable to a fine of up to €5,000, or to imprisonment for a term of up to 12 months, or to both. Section 15 is a standard provision on defences for offences under the Act. Section 16 is a standard section that provides for the liability of officers of a corporate body in the case of an offence by that corporate body. Section 17 allows the national environmental health service of the HSE to bring proceedings for an offence under this Act. In addition, it provides that on conviction, the court can order the person convicted to pay the costs and expenses incurred in relation to the investigation, detection and prosecution of the offence. Section 18 provides that offences may be prosecuted up to 12 months after being committed. Section 19 provides for an offence of providing false or misleading information in purported compliance with this Act. Section 20 provides for a process of disclosure which includes protections against the sharing of information that is legally privileged.

I commend this Bill to this House.

Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State very much. The first speaker will be Senator Keogan.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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I thank the Acting Chair. The Minister of State is very welcome to the Chamber. The objective of this Bill is sound and broadly shared across this House. Disposable vapes are wasteful, environmentally damaging and far too accessible to children and young people. The decision to remove them from the market is justified and overdue. However, as legislators our responsibility does not end with good intentions. It begins with asking whether the measures we put in place will deliver the outcomes we seek or whether, through gaps in design, they may create new problems while failing to solve the old one. It is fair to say the Bill before us is not one that turns on deep moral questions or contested legal principles but is rather technical public policy legislation aimed at achieving a practical objective and we should interrogate it as such.

That is why correspondence I received recently from the Irish Waste Management Association, IWMA, which I understand many other Senators also received, deserves careful attention. What it outlines is deeply concerning. While the IWMA fully supports the purpose of this Bill, it questions whether the current wording risks repeating the mistakes seen in other jurisdictions, especially the UK, where bans on single-use vapes were followed not by reduced harm or waste but by a shift in the market towards so-called multi-use devices. These devices, we are told, contain significantly larger lithium batteries, hold far more liquid and are often only marginally more expensive than disposable vapes. In practice, they become semi-disposable products that are heavier and more dangerous in the waste stream and far more likely to cause fires in bin lorries and recycling facilities. This is not a theoretical concern. Ireland’s waste sector has experienced repeated, devastating fires in recent years and the reading is quite shocking. Over the last five years at least eight major Irish waste and recycling facilities have suffered catastrophic fires, many of which were linked to lithium battery incidents, and these resulted in closures, rebuilds and severe capacity loss. Out of nine facilities sorting household dry recyclables, three are currently out of action due to fires.Maybe, one more fire could tank our national capacity for recycling. This is unsurprising for anyone who is aware of the nature of lithium battery fires. These fires reach temperatures of up to 1,400°C. The released toxic gases are incredibly difficult to extinguish and can reignite even after being extinguished. To this end, banning single use vapes is a laudable and necessary measure as it is simply insanity that they should be so easily bought and then so easily thrown away into ordinary bins. However, if this Bill inadvertently accelerates the movement towards larger single-use battery devices then we will have succeeded in banning one product category while worsening the underlying environmental and safety risk. That would represent a failure of policy design, not because the aim was wrong but because the system effects were not fully thought through.

I will not ask to block or abandon this Bill but I ask quite reasonably for space and time to get the details right. I would like to ask whether the definition of "reusable" is robust enough to prevent manufacturers gaming the system, whether battery size, design and disposability should be addressed directly and ask whether producers responsible for end-of-life disposal should be made explicit rather than assumed. These are precisely the sort of questions that Committee Stage exists to answer. To this end, I will be looking to bring forward amendments that will attempt to address these issues. I invite the Government and all Members of the Chamber who are interested in contacting me to collaborate in making these amendments. For example, we could look at measures that distinguish genuine reusable products from quasi-disposables that take account of lithium battery fire risk and restrict certain battery sizes. We can also look at measures that mandate producers' responsibility for damages done to waste systems and perhaps even strengthening the existing penalties on those who throw these vapes into the wrong bins.

None of this delays the Bill. It simply ensures that we are not back here in two years' time legislating to fix a problem we could have anticipated today.

Maria Byrne (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for coming to discuss this all-important issue and to bring forward the Public Health (Single Use Vapes) Bill 2025. I will be supporting this Bill. As the Minister outlined, it is important due to the fact that bubble gum and different flavours and colourful packaging make it attractive to young people. It is to be welcomed that it will be banned, basically. There has been a lot of pressure on young people to vape because they were being told that smoking was bad for them. However, they have turned to vaping. A lot of young people are seen vaping. This is the single-use vape. That is what you see being promoted in shops. While cigarettes are behind a blackened-out screen and can no longer be seen, vapes are still openly on sale especially in shops. There are actual vape shops selling only vapes. It is to be welcomed that a Bill is being brought forward to propose the banning of it. I understand it is difficult to ban them completely and that is why the Minister is supporting vapes that can be refilled or reused. You have to start somewhere. That is the kernel of this Bill.

I have a few questions. I assume the Department will write to small retailers, or indeed all retailers, to inform them of the "do's and don'ts" including the underage issue. A question I do not see addressed and that I would like to highlight is how somebody buying a single-use vape in another country and using it here will be handled. I realise there will be officers with authority but if it is bought in another country I am not sure that will be covered by this Bill. It is usually groups of young girls who you see actually vaping. They have the single-use ones, which look slightly smaller, more like a lighter, square and butty. I have a concern over that.

The Irish Heart Foundation and the Irish Cancer Society had a concern around whether the Bill is strong enough. Will the Minister have engagement with them? Perhaps she already has, because while they are firm supporters of what she is trying to do, they would like to have that conversation, if possible before bringing forward the next Stage. I commend the Minister on what she is doing. It is important to focus on the under-18s and the single use as the starting point and then develop it from there. I had a Private Members' Bill here about three years ago in relation to vaping and banning in stages like that. I look forward to supporting this Bill.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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I will start by saying I am a vaper, so I am slightly biased on this. I do not use disposables. I used to until I discovered that the same flavour as the disposable can be bought in the bottle of juice and it is actually cheaper to use a reusable. That is one thing that Members have wrong; it is not cheaper to use disposables. If you were to smoke it like a smoker would smoke it, one reusable cigarette or vape will only last for a day.

I completely agree this is not for children. It is not for under-18s. I would like to see the target age of smokers or vapers not being 18 to 25 or 15 to 25 but rather, I would like to see the figure at 15 to 18 years of age. On turning 18, a person is legally allowed to smoke cigarettes or vapes.

The next Bill that is coming in was mentioned. I have no problem with banning disposables. I have not smoked a disposable vape in probably two years until I got caught once when I left my rechargeable here one day and I had to buy one at the train station because I thought I would not make it home without my nicotine. I put my hand up, I love my vape. The banning of the flavours is the wrong way to go. I started on my vape on a nicotine flavour and it lasted me two-and-a-half days and I went back on cigarettes because it was absolutely disgusting. As horrible as they were, cigarettes were a hell of a lot better. Many people I have spoken to agree with me that if flavours were not available we would either go outside the State to get them, with the risk of getting something that is not up to the standard that exists here, or go back on cigarettes. We are going to have problem where suddenly more people go back to smoking cigarettes.

I get that they are not for children but change the packaging. Put them behind a wall as was done with cigarettes. People know the flavours they want and do not need to see the colourful box to decide what they want. People go between a couple of flavours. They are fruit flavours. It makes me feel better having a fruit flavour than smoking a cigarette. I actually feel healthier for it. In any pub or off licence there are bottles of WKD, which are blue and fun to look at and there are the new West Coast Cooler flavours that look like Red Bull cans. A law is in place that children cannot buy them. It should not need a prohibition or outright ban for everybody. The laws that are in place should be enacted. They should be enforced so that children cannot buy them. It is the same with bottles of cider. There is not just one flavour. It is not just apple, there is a strawberry and lime cider. I am entitled to buy it because I am over the age. There are different flavours. There will not be a ban on all cigarettes except for one flavour.We are not going to say that we are only going to smoke Silk Cut Ultra going forward in this country because there is less nicotine in them. We need to think fully and talk to all sides. I know about the Irish Heart Foundation and the waste side of it. Responsible Vape in Ireland make some very good points. They completely agree that children should not be buying them. They are not supposed to be marketed at children. That is the fault of the packaging. I am sure people would be quite happy to put it into generic packaging and do what they did with cigarettes. That would allow people who came off cigarettes, whether it was for cost or for health, to go on vaping instead because they probably felt it was not as bad. We have to think about the adults who are going to be affected by this and we have to look at what could happen down the line. A full, outright ban will lead to a lot more smokers. Then we will have another problem on our hands and we will go backwards. The Minister of State needs to be very careful as to what she bans and what she regulates. I completely agree, I do not like to see children - only last week I was going through some of my old handbags and I found a couple of old disposables that I had thrown in there. They are everywhere and I know that, because I see them everywhere. I do get that there is a waste disposal issue and that side of it. However, it is cheaper to buy a reusable cigarette. Senator Keogan was saying there are multi-use ones where you charge them but you do not fill them, which are cheaper again. They might fall through the cracks of this legislation.

Michael McDowell (Independent)
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I welcome the Minister of State. Clearly this is a complex issue. It is complicated by European law and by the points that have just been made about adults, children and the like. It is complicated by the concept that, while tobacco consumption as a way of getting nicotine is manifestly worse for health than vaping is, nobody knows really what the long-term consequences of vaping actually are.

As a general point, there is confusion in this society on the part of those people who want to legalise cannabis on the one hand and, at the same time, wipe out tobacco consumption. There is a very strong correlation between consumption of tobacco and of cannabis. When I was Minister for justice, I had to wrestle with the problem. People asked me why, since I was a liberal, I did not allow people smoke cannabis. It is for the very simple reason that if it is legalised, an 18-year-old can get it and give it to a 14-year-old. The qualities of cannabis, the psychological and psychiatric effects, are very serious.

The Minister of State is proposing to bring in further legislation on this matter. I know this is highly qualified, and very unusually qualified, by the European dimension, which is strange indeed. The Italian Government has complained about Ireland to the Commission so we are on thin enough ice, or a tightrope, before we start.

I would just like to point out a few things about the Public Health (Tobacco Products and Nicotine Inhaling Products) (Amendment ) Bill 2026, particularly in page 23, subsection (7), which deals with licensees' obligations. Section 26A(7) provides that:

"This section shall not apply to a premises or a website (or otherwise online) which wholly comprises the sale of nicotine inhaling products or mainly comprises the sale of nicotine inhaling products, provided that the only other products sold at that premises or from that website (or otherwise online) are— (a) nicotine consumption products,

(b) vapes,

(c) vaping substances, or

(d) accessories related to the functioning or maintenance of nicotine inhaling products or vapes."."

What are we doing here? We are saying that the prohibition on advertising, provided for in subsection (2) of the same section 26A, through circulars, leaflets, pamphlets and brochures does not apply to somebody who specialises in the sale of vaping products. I can see what it says but I do not know what the logic behind it is. There is a shop at the top of upper Merrion Street, which seems to be a vape shop alone. I am always struck by the fact that they can pay a rent and carry on a business right in the city centre, apparently in circumstances where they could avail of section 26A(7). I really wonder if we actually want to say that the ban on advertising leaflets and the like does not apply to websites exclusively dealing with vaping products. We will have to look at that on Committee Stage. There is another point I want to make in my limited time. Section 28B deals with supply. It provides that: "A person shall not sell by retail, or cause to be sold by retail, a nicotine consumption product to a child." It does not stop a 17-year-old or an 18-and-a-half-year-old from going in and buying the half the shop and giving it to 15-year-olds directly outside the premises. Is that okay? Is it okay for a 15-year-old to ask an 18-and-a-half-year-old to go and buy a month's supply of vaping products? We really have to think this through.

The Minister of State is in the embarrassing position, if I may say that, of having two Bills in the pipeline, of which this is one. I really do think we have to look around a few corners and ask ourselves whether this Bill is in a fit condition to be passed in its present form, even if something else more serious is coming down the tracks. I will leave it at that.

Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the Minister of State to the House, and I welcome the legislation. Senator McDowell makes some pertinent points with which I agree. The example of the 15-year-old asking the 18-year-old extends to off licences, lottery tickets and all these other things as well. It is a major issue. As a former retailer, I have fierce sympathy for retailers. They are usually employing staff, and a lot of weekend staff in particular are only 17, 18 or 19 themselves. It is very difficult and very awkward.

The global point I wish to make is that the former Ministers, Stephen Donnelly and the Tánaiste, Deputy Harris, both brought in Bills. We have had a couple of different Bills on vaping. It is painstakingly slow. I am a big believer in getting legislation right and that does take time; I totally understand that. I also acknowledge Senator Collins and admire her for giving up cigarettes. If vaping is helping in that regard, that is a good thing.

I had a discussion with the Minister for disabilities in Australia when he visited Ireland in 2024. He said that vaping is actually illegal in Australia in the sense that you can only vape if you have a prescription to get a vape. I would love us to get to that point in Ireland, so somebody who is giving up cigarettes and needs an intervention to do that goes to their GP, gets a prescription, and vapes, as opposed to children and young people vaping with the danger of leading on to smoking and other substances. We need to actually grasp this out-of-control nettle and deal with it. You cannot walk on any main street in this country but you will notice the proliferation of these vape shops. In Ennis there are four or five of them. I was recently in Arthur's Quay shopping centre in Limerick. As soon as you go in the door, the first thing you see is a vape shop. I was in a SuperValu supermarket at the weekend and the brightest and most striking feature behind the customer service checkout was the vaping display.Why in God's name can we not just get rid of all advertising of vapes in shops? These shops would then have to comply with the style of a town. There is nothing as bad as seeing these awful vape shops lit up at night creating the temptation and attraction for young people. We are a great country but we were a great country when it came to what Micheál Martin did in March 2004 when he banned smoking in pubs. Publicans went on television at the time and said they ran the country and you hold your meetings in our premises. They did not run the country and the smoking ban at that stage was contentious but if one was to propose reintroducing smoking in pubs now, 98% of the population would go against it. I firmly believe vaping is the next challenge we need to deal with head on. There is no reason we cannot be the standard-bearers and set the standard in Europe in dealing with vaping. The first thing we need to do is remove signage over these shops and put vapes under the counter the same as cigarettes. I support getting rid of single-use vapes. That is appropriate. It has taken too long to get to this stage. It also took too long to prohibit under-18s from buying vapes. We ultimately need to make it very difficult for people over or under 18 to get their hands on vapes. The research is fairly clear that vapes lead on to other things. We owe it to the young people of this country not just to tell them vaping is wrong but to demonstrate it by removing it from our main streets, shopping centres, SuperValus and elsewhere where they are in your face as soon as you go in the door. We still have work to do on smoking. We need to ban smoking outside schools, pubs that do food and restaurants and places like that. There is a lot of work to do on smoking as well. The Minister of State is doing a good job and I know she is here to listen. I have no doubt but the final Bill might, I hope, reflect some of our concerns.

Paul Daly (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister of State and compliment her on the great work she is doing on this Bill. I apologise there was nobody here from her own party. There was a misunderstanding and I am here now with no homework done. As a reformed smoker for the moment anyway because you are never completely off them, I can probably speak on this topic without have done the proverbial homework. The Bill does not go far enough. I am speaking personally in that I think vapes should be banned, end of story. I would have cigarettes 100 times a day before I would touch a vape. I probably could have given up smoking a lot sooner if I had given in to the temptation to use them as a way of getting off cigarettes but I would not, thankfully, let myself inhale something I had not got a clue what was in it. That is not to justify cigarettes - at least I knew what was in them and what I was smoking. A good friend of mine said if you want to stay smoking, smoke a cigar because it is pure tobacco and you will not get a better smoke. A cigarette has some additives but a vape has God knows what. The single-use vape thing takes from the whole health side of this Bill. It sounds as if this is a litter issue and the Bill is being introduced to avoid unwanted litter and disposable vapes. It actually is a health Bill being introduced for health purposes. I would ban them all. I had a good social conversation with the principal of a secondary school about a year ago. While he had a list the length of his arm of asks when it came to the educational needs of the school, when he had the ear of a politician, his one request was to ban vapes. He said they would know in the afternoon students were after having - it would not have been vanilla - in a vape at dinner time. It was obvious. While some were over 18 and you could not stop them vaping in their own time during lunch, it was not vanilla they were vaping, was the way he put it. It was hard stuff. How do we know what is in them and who puts what into them? I welcome the Bill. The Minister of State will have our full support. It is a move in the right direction. It is a personal opinion that they should be banned in their entirety but at least the Minister of State is making an effort and starting the wheels in motion. If disposable vapes are banned, I also agree with what was said by previous speakers that they are too obvious and evident. We have done it with drink in off-licences and supermarkets where they have been put behind closed doors. We have done it with cigarettes, taken away the branding and put them behind closed doors. When you walk into a shop now, you would not know if there were cigarettes there or not. If you walk down any street in any rural town, along with the bookies, the coffee shop and a few other mainstays, there is a vape shop. This is big money business when they can have stand-alone shops. When big money is involved, there is a big battle to fight. I compliment the Minister of State and guarantee our support through the process of the Bill.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all Senators for their contributions on this debate. I look forward to continuing engagement on the Bill on Committee Stage. Some Senators had to leave so I will come back to them on the issues raised. We are working with retailers and there will be notification. On single-use vapes from another country, this Bill applies to sales in the State. We cannot legislate for sales in other countries. Many other EU countries have banned them and an EU-wide law is coming in. I will meet any groups or organisations Senators would like us to meet.

Senator McDowell spoke and I thank him. To clarify, there are two Bills. The Bill he spoke about is the second Bill, not the single-use vape Bill we are discussing tonight. We have two Bills on the advice of the Office of the Attorney General due to the regulatory framework for single-use vapes being different from that of the nicotine inhalant products. The issues he raised are very relevant. I assure him in the second Bill I will do what I can to work on that. There are many different opinions and many people feel to differently whether it is cigarettes and vapes. When the second Bill was in the Dáil last week, flavours were brought up on several occasions by Members. I thank him for raising it too. Enforcement is important. The Public Health (Tobacco Products and Nicotine Inhaling Products) (Amendment) Bill 2026 introduces a range of new enforcement tools. There will be compliance and prohibition notices, fixed-payment notices, a minimum licence suspension period following conviction and a revocation of licence after conviction if someone has two convictions. On resources, enforcement of tobacco and nicotine inhaling products legislation was highlighted as a priority action in 2026. The national service plan is part of this. Thirty additional WTEs have been allocated to the national environmental health service. It is recruiting these posts. They are expected we hope in mid-2026. On the proposals to extend the existing smoking-free legislation to vaping and prohibited smoking in outdoor areas, this has come across a lot of the time. It was subject to public consultation in 2024 alongside measures to regulate nicotine inhaling products. That is vaping and smoking in public which has constantly come up. The legislation programme pursued included the measures most likely to reduce vaping among young people. However our national tobacco control policy, tobacco-free Ireland, is currently being reviewed. Senator McDowell is right - working with our EU counterparts will play a huge role in this. The review will be considered in the full range of existing legislation and measures to protect the public from second-hand smoke and aerosols and whether these should be strengthened.We are looking at this in the context of the EU Council recommendation on smoke and aerosol-free environments, which recommends that member states protect the public from second-hand smoke and aerosols in a range of indoor and outdoor settings. This is just part of what is being looked at. It is important because a lot of money has been invested in the prevention campaign for vaping. Some €300,000 was allocated in budget 2025 to develop and run a youth vaping prevention media campaign and €200,000 was given in budget 2026 to continue this campaign. The first thing that has to be said is that you cannot sell vapes to under-18s. You are breaking the law. You cannot do that. It is illegal to sell vapes to under-18s; you cannot do it. This campaign provides evidence-based messaging to young people, as well as information and support to parents and guardians about vapes.

The first phase of the campaign, aimed at parents and guardians, was launched in 2025. This included digital advertising and radio campaigns. We are very mindful that we are living in an era where for young people, a lot of things are digital. We have to be mindful of that and of how we get the prevention campaign out there. The second phase of the campaign is aimed at children and young people. It was launched in March of this year. We got influencers and a content creator to reach young people through social media. Again, we had to very much focus on social media and I believe it is the first time the HSE had influencers doing this. I thought it was really important to target our young people on this. As part of the campaign, a letter was sent to schools encouraging teachers and parents to learn more about vaping and to download the resources from the HSE. Since then, over 8,000 leaflets have been sent out. It is hoped that this campaign will also contribute to the continuing decline in tobacco use among young people, given the association between vaping and subsequent smoking in adolescents.

There is another area that comes up all the time; I am raising it in the last few minutes here. We are talking about what is called a smoke-free generation. In November 2024, the Public Health (Tobacco) (Amendment) Act 2024 - Senator Paul Daly spoke about this - was enacted. Under this law, Ireland became the first country in the EU to raise its minimum legal age for sale of tobacco products to 21. The measures will come into effect on 1 February 2028. We are really making good strides and we need to do more. Our national tobacco control policy, Tobacco Free Ireland, is currently being reviewed and one of the central goals is to set out a pathway to end the epidemic of smoking-related harm in Ireland. All measures to fulfil these objectives will be considered, including a general ban, which is the smoke-free generation. That is another thing. We are all working on the quit smoking campaign.

Our objectives are clear. We want to put in place a law that is effective, proportionate, firm and focuses on protecting public health and the environment. Ireland is acting and doing its best in how we act decisively. In doing so, we are moving ahead of many of our European counterparts. An EU-wide approach would significantly strengthen the impact of our national action and ensure member states are supported in their efforts. That is why both I and the Minister for Health have consistently called for a revision of the tobacco products directive as soon as possible. However, we cannot afford to wait for EU actions. We have a responsibility to act where we can to protect the health of our children and young people. That is what this law and this next Bill I will bring to the House aims to do.

This legislation is about prevention. By banning single-use vapes, we are taking further action to protect our young people from nicotine addiction and to prevent a new generation from becoming dependent on these products. Single-use vapes are designed to be cheap, attractive and easy to use. This is a contribution to the normalisation of nicotine use and it seems to have become normalised now. It is not good for our environment and public health either.

This Bill prioritises the protection of children and young people from these harmful and addictive substances. I know it is an issue that all public representatives are concerned about and I hope Senators will work with us on these issues. This is about protecting health and well-being, particularly for our children. I thank everyone for raising the really relevant issues and concerns they have today. As I said, I will be in again with our second Bill. It is important that we all work together. This legislation is vital. I know there are challenges, as other speakers have said, but this is about our young people and what we need to do to move as quickly as possible.

Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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When is it proposed to take Committee Stage?

Paul Daly (Fianna Fail)
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Next Tuesday.

Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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Is that agreed? Agreed.

Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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When is it proposed to sit again?

Paul Daly (Fianna Fail)
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Tomorrow at 10.30 a.m.

Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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Is that agreed? Agreed.