The contrast between this year's tax on cigarettes and last year's says all that needs to be said about the level of conviction and principle in the Government. Last year this Government of conviction, with an interest in health, increased the tax on cigarettes by 5 p. We said it was not enough, but this Government had no convictions whatever about health or the effect of tobacco. In the past 12 months there has been agitation on this issue. Deputy Shatter produced a report for the Joint Committee on Health and Children on tobacco use and its effects with particular reference to taxation. This Government, reactive as ever, absent of all principle but concerned to go with the flow, switched from last year's position of anything more than 5p being far too much to an equally principled position this year that anything less than a 50p increase would be too little. This Government does not know where it stands on any fundamental question. It changes its policy to suit the way the wind is blowing.
This is emblematic of the Government's underlying approach to all economic and social questions. It has no fundamental economic and social view. It has no view of what the country should look like and it has no sense of direction. Just as it completely reversed the income tax policy of the previous year's budget last year, this year it completely reversed the cigarette tax policy of last year. It has no anchor, centre or direction. It is simply a group of people gathered around a table, happy to be drawing above average salaries, to have their photograph taken, to appear at any openings or closings to which they are invited and very proud of being Ministers and being called "Minister" but with no idea of what a Minister is supposed to do. A Minister is supposed to be someone who ultimately takes political responsibility for setting a country's direction. A Minister who changes direction every 12 months is not really a Minister because they do not have a sense of direction, which is what is fundamentally required of them. This Government does not have a sense of direction. This is not particularly inherent in Fianna Fáil. Many past Fianna Fáil Governments have had a sense of direction – usually one I did not like but a sense of direction just the same.
It is impossible to dislike this Government because its approach is "whatever it is you're having yourself, I'll have that too." If people want no increase in tax on cigarettes tax this year, that is fine. If, next year, people want a big increase in tax on cigarettes, it will also go along with that. The Government is easygoing, accommodating, inoffensive and useless. It is a useless Govern ment in the sense of governing. It is simply presiding over an economy and trimming to take account of needs as they arise.
I support this year's approach to cigarette taxation. I was opposed to last year's approach. Last year I said the 5p tax increase on a packet of cigarettes was insufficient. This year I welcome the 50p increase in tax on cigarettes because it is sufficient and proper. I support it because it is clear cigarettes damage the health, not only of the smoker but those who live and work with them. The evidence of the deleterious effects of smoking and passive smoking on health is mounting. It is clear that cigarette manufacturers have known for a long time that cigarette smoking is addictive and have targeted young people to promote the addiction from an early age. It is a matter of considerable worry that there is an increase in the number of young people smoking. In their 20s and 30s, when they eventually get sense, they must go through the trauma of withdrawal from the addiction.
It is a chemical addiction. It is a physical craving for cigarettes deliberately promoted and created by the cigarette companies to make money. This is all about making money on the back of addiction. We listened to Deputy O'Donoghue promote his policy of zero-tolerance of drug pushers. He is referring to people pushing drugs which in some cases are only moderately addictive but are deemed under current law to be illegal. Last year and the previous year, he had maximum tolerance of people promoting another severely addictive drug, namely, the cigarette. I understand it is more difficult to give up cigarettes than to give up heroin in terms of the withdrawal symptoms. The chemical barrier to be overcome is as great or greater for someone trying to give up cigarettes as for someone trying to give up heroin. The inevitability of death is just as great. Perhaps people die more quickly from heroin addiction. This is probably due to its illegality as much as to the substance itself, given the lack of quality control for needles and so on. Perhaps this aggravates the speed with which people die from heroin addiction. However, people also die from cigarette smoking. It is a matter of the gravest concern that this product continues to be widely available to young people.
There have been many proposals as to what should be done with the tax yield from the 50p increase in the cost of a packet of cigarettes. I draw the Taoiseach's attention to the fact that it is predicted that 23 million people will die in Africa from AIDS. Some 23 per cent of pregnant women in South Africa, one of the most developed countries in the continent, are HIV positive, whereas less than 1 per cent of pregnant women in 1990 were HIV positive. Many businesses in east Africa must provide a large sum of money in their annual budgets to pay for the funerals of their workers. One tea company in Kenya must now pay five times as much in funeral benefit as a result of its workers dying from AIDS. We in this country have lived in an aura of victimhood since the famine. Some one million people died on this island within two years and we believe the world ignored this. Many people throughout the world were not aware of what was happening. There was no Sky television in 1847. We now know that 23 million people will die from AIDS in Africa. We also know that treatment for AIDS is available which will cost as much as an average South African worker earns per week. In other words, in order to prevent themselves from dying, an average South African worker infected with AIDS must spend as much on retroviral treatment as he earns in the week and have nothing left. The surplus money we possess should go towards reducing the cost of AIDS treatment in Africa, not in Ireland, because this is a prosperous country. We should use this money to help the poorest of the poor. I recall the speeches made on the pro-life issue.
