I thank Members for their contributions to the debate on the Bill. I look forward to their support as the Bill is considered further on Committee Stage.
The issue of the further regulation of nicotine inhaling products has been raised. I share these concerns and it is an area on which the Minister for Health and I would like to see Ireland take a leading role in the future. lf we want to tackle the usage of nicotine inhaling products by our young people, the first and most important step is to prohibit their sale to persons under the age of 18. That is what the Bill is doing.
We are late with this ban, as Deputies Shortall, Gino Kenny and others mentioned, because the majority of EU countries already have it in place. The Bill has been notified at EU level and the required standstill period is set to end on 8 September. We will be able to bring this measure into operation early in the next term. lf further amendments are made to the Bill those amendments will have to be notified at EU level and a new three-month, or potentially a six-month standstill period, will begin. The Minister for Health does not wish to wait any longer than is absolutely necessary to implement the prohibition on the sale of these products to our children. I support him on this.
Successful actions on public health problems such as tobacco usage or alcohol consumption require multiple evidence-based interventions in order to affect usage. Each aspect of the product, including pricing, advertising, packaging and sale need to be addressed in order to have a successful impact. In addition, as several Deputies mentioned, it is important that any law that is made is reviewed for effectiveness. I am also conscious that e-cigarettes are already regulated at EU level by the tobacco products directive and that a new proposal for a directive is expected in 2024. It is important that we recognise when it is better to act nationally and when such action would be more effective at EU level as part of a comprehensive strategy.
It is clear from the Deputies' comments that there is a range of opinions on how best to regulate the packaging, flavours and advertising of these products and on how we take into consideration the relative harm of these products compared to combustible tobacco products. In this context, the Minister and I have asked officials to examine options for the development of further and comprehensive legislation on nicotine inhaling products such as e-cigarettes. This will begin with a call for evidence so that we can ascertain the views and the public health evidence that exist on these products and their usage. We will take into consideration that while these products have no benefit to young people or to non-smokers, and are not recommended by the HSE for smoking cessation, they were used by one in five Irish smokers who successfully quit cigarettes last year.
These considerations are complex but what is not complex is that we need to ban the sale of these products to those under the age of 18 as soon as possible. We also need to introduce our licensing system to ensure that we know who is selling these products and so that we can enforce compliance with the new measures we are introducing.
Deputy Alan Farrell mentioned that we should use the plain packaging law that applies to cigarettes and extend it to nicotine inhaling products. The purpose of that complex legislation was to remove all elements from packaging other than the prescribed EU health warnings, and to specify in detail how the remaining information must be displayed. That law cannot simply be applied across to packaging for nicotine inhaling products. In addition, the EU has competence for health warnings on e-cigarettes because it already legislated for these in the tobacco products directive.
Several Deputies queried the current level of regulation on e-cigarettes. I want to make it clear that there is already substantial regulation of e-cigarettes under the European Union (Manufacture, Presentation and Sale of Tobacco and Related Products) Regulations 2016.
This includes mandatory quality and safety requirements, maximum nicotine content levels, health warnings and other labelling requirements and an EU-wide ban on the advertising of e-cigarettes online, on television and radio and in print or non-trade publications. Several Deputies mentioned products labelled wrongly in relation to their nicotine content. These products should be reported to the Environmental Health Service as this is a contravention of the requirements of the 2016 EU regulations.
Several Deputies mentioned the need to increase support for smokers trying to quit. Last year, VAT was removed from all nicotine replacement therapy products and funding for the HSE's Quit programme reached €15.7 million, up from €11.8 million in 2017. In addition, in February this year, the HSE announced the roll-out of free stop smoking medication such as nicotine replacement therapy products to anyone using the HSE Quit service. I would encourage anyone thinking about quitting smoking to make use of these services.
A number of Deputies mentioned the role of social media influencers in promoting the use of nicotine inhaling products. This is a difficult area as these promotions do not fall under traditional legal definitions of advertising. Any action in this regard will require engagement with the Media Commission, which is responsible for the regulation of this area.
A number of the Deputies mentioned the environmental impact of disposable nicotine inhaling products. The Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Ossian Smyth, launched a public consultation on disposable vapes on 1 June this year. That consultation is open for submissions for an eight-week period until 27 July. The purpose of the consultation is to examine what action should be taken from an environmental perspective. The proposed policy options include a ban on disposable vaping devices or a deposit and return system for disposable vaping devices. I look forward to the results of the consultation and the next steps.
Other queries arose that I am happy to answer. The Bill applies to online sales the same as to traditional sales and persons selling these products online will require a licence as if they had a physical premises. The purchase of a nicotine inhaling product by an adult for a child is prohibited by this Bill. The percentage of non-smokers or never smokers who vape has consistently been found to be approximately 1% of the population in our Healthy Ireland surveys and the figure from the 2022 survey was 1.2%. The ban on the sale of these products to our children is our urgent objective. The other issues in relation to packaging and flavours and other restrictions will be the subject of further legislation after we have the evidence to support policy change. I thank Deputies once again for their contributions on the introduction of this Bill to this House and look forward to further debate on Committee Stage and ultimately enacting this important legislation.