Written Answers. - Tobacco Products Revenue.
Peter Barry
Question:
226
Mr. Barry
asked the
Minister for Health
the percentage of the revenue raised from taxes on the sale of tobacco products which is apportioned to the public education and health promotion programmes, as related to tobacco smoking; if it is proposed to spend more money on these programmes; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Provisional estimates from the Revenue Commissioners suggest that tobacco yielded £529 million in Government revenue in 1992.
My Department has in place a comprehensive anti-smoking strategy which includes legislative, educational and fiscal measures. Smoking is the largest single dimensional issue on which my Department's Health Promotion Unit organises public education and health programmes. A wide range of initiatives are currently under way.
As the Deputy is aware I recently launched a major multi-media anti-smoking campaign, targeted specifically at young people but which is designed to appeal to all age groups. A feature of the campaign was a stop-smoking free-phone which drew an unprecedented response from the public. This multi-media campaign will cost approximately £300,000 during 1993.
This media campaign is supported by a variety of more in-depth educational projects for specific target groups. The Health Promotion Unit, in conjunction with the Department of Education and the Irish Cancer Society, is currently pilot testing a peer-led approach to anti-smoking education among young people. Leaders chosen by young people themselves are being trained to address the issue among their peers. This is an approach which has been showing promising results elsewhere and, if the results of the evaluation of the pilot project prove favourable, it is my intention to make the programme available nationwide. This programme will cost approximately £70,000 in 1993.
In addition to these two projects, the Health Promotion Unit will also spend approximately £45,000 on the production and dissemination of anti-smoking materials during 1993.
There is a number of other initiatives in which the unit is involved but, because smoking is only one of the substances of abuse dealt with, it could be very difficult to cost the anti-tobacco element in each of these initiatives.
Smoking is one of the issues being addressed in a general substance abuse prevention pilot project being undertaken by the Health Promotion Unit in conjunction with the Department of Education and Mater Dei Institute. It has also been one of the themes for the annual poster competition run by the Health Promotion Unit in first and second level schools. I am also aware that school health education programmes in several health board areas address the issue.
The structure of the community-based health education programme for adults — Lifewise — makes provision for the inclusion of smoking as a topic, subject to the demands of course participants.
I am aware of the very important role that health professionals such as doctors, nurses and dentists can play in encouraging people to refrain from smoking and supporting them in their efforts to do so. For that reason my Department's Health Promotion Unit, with the support of the Europe against Cancer Programme, developed a manual and associated materials to assist health professionals in this task. These materials have been very widely disseminated among GPs and dentists and, on a pilot basis, among groups of public health nurses.
I am also aware that parents' attitudes and behaviour are among the important influences on young people's smoking. For this reason my Department's Health Promotion Unit, in conjunction with the Southern Health Board, has initiated a substance abuse education programme for parents in the Cork area which,inter alia, addresses the issue of tobacco use.
While information and education constitute an integral component of an anti-tobacco strategy, I consider that such efforts must be supplemented by an environment that discourages smoking. My Department has an extensive body of anti-tobacco legislation in place — some of which has been used as a model by the European Commission in framing its anti-tobacco directives. The most recent piece of legislation — the Tobacco (Health Promotion and Protection Act) 1988 — prohibits and restricts smoking in designated public places. Last year my Department sought to extend protection against smoking to workers generally by means of a Voluntary Code of Practice against Smoking in the Workplace. This code has been widely disseminated by the Health Promotion Unit in a booklet entitled "Clean Air at Work".
My Department has also pursued with the Department of Finance a strategy of ensuring, through budgetary measures, that the real price of cigarettes is at least maintained.
The Deputy can rest assured that it is my intention that, subject to the competing demands for health education on other important health issues, every opportunity will be taken to discourage smoking in our community.
