andMr. Harte asked the Minister for Health what additional evidence has become available to him which has led to his advising the tobacco companies to publish the danger to health warning notice on cigarette cartons.
6.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Cigarette Smoking Warning.
5.
andMr. Harte asked the Minister for Health whether any new legislation would be needed to enforce the proposed danger to health notice on cigarette cartons in the Republic.
7.
andMr. Harte asked the Minister for Health why the danger to health notice would not be printed on cigarette cartons intended for the export trade.
I propose with your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, to answer Questions Nos. 5 to 7 together.
I suppose essentially what the Deputies who put down these questions are trying to do is to ascertain from me why I have changed my mind about warning notices on cigarette packets. I am on record, I know, as saying that I rejected the concept on the grounds that it would have little or no practical effect. However, the Chief Medical Officer of my Department who represented me at the Second World Conference on smoking held in London from the 20th to 24th September last, reported to me that a number of countries, including the United States of America and the United Kingdom, who were committed to warning notices on cigarette packets, were of opinion that, apart altogether from their efficacy, warning notices were regarded as an overt indication of a country's seriousness about anti-cigarette smoking health education. I accepted this as a valid view and I sought the co-operation of the Irish Tobacco Manufacturers Advisory Committee which was readily forthcoming and which resulted in the agreement about the warning notices of which Deputies are aware. I have incidentally had copies of the Code of Practice agreed between me and the manufacturers placed in the Library.
Legislation will not be necessary to implement the warning notices. As to the warning notices on cigarettes for the export market I am assured by the manufacturers that they will conform to the requirements of the countries to which they will be exported.
Is it not a fact that all this information was available when the Private Members' Bill was introduced by Deputy Cooney, Deputy Harte, Deputy O'Connell and myself, and the reason the Minister made a change was that he knew that in a free vote he would be defeated? What is the difference between the morality of this and the morality of a drug pedlar or a drug pusher selling a drug which he knows to be dangerous to a consumer and damaging to health and refusing to draw the attention of the person to this fact? Having agreed to do it here, why does the Minister not insist on the tobacco companies doing it when they are exporting this dangerous drug for consumption in countries other than Ireland?
The Deputy ought to raise that matter on the Estimate for the Department of Health. It is too involved to deal with now.
I am asking it now.
I will not make a lengthy statement about it. It relates to the comparative danger of cigarette smoking, indulging in dangerous drugs or indulging in alcohol. It is subject to a whole number of considerations as the Deputy knows. I do not propose to enter into a lengthy discussion here about it.
Is it not a fact that we have frequently listened to the Minister anathematising the activities of drug pushers and drug pedlars because they sell drugs and do not tell the potential consumers that they are dangerous? Is the Minister not now condoning this same type of offence on the part of the tobacco companies? They are in exactly the same category as a drug pedlar.
I do not agree that they are in anything like the same category.