I thank the Chairman and the joint committee for facilitating this meeting. This is a very important public health initiative and the Bill will protect children from a habit that kills one in two people who take it up. I am pleased to be joined by the Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Tony Holohan, and Ms Geraldine Luddy from the Department.
I do not know if familiarity breeds contempt, but in the case of smoking, it often stops one from breathing. If today we were to discover a product in routine domestic use was killing half the people who used it, I do not think it is too much of a leap in imagination to speculate that everybody would pull out all the stops to fix the issue. If this product were to be brought to the market today, knowing what we know about it, it would not see the light of day and would never be made legal. I have said many times that my priority, while not forgetting those who smoke currently, is to prevent children from starting. We are not anti-smoker and will continue to support smokers who wish to kick the habit.
A large survey found that almost four out of every five smokers, 78%, started to smoke before the age of 18 years. This means that children are being recruited by the tobacco industry to replace the 5,200 Irish people who die every year from tobacco-related disease and the other thousands who give up smoking. The tobacco industry seeks to recruit new smokers and we know that four times out of five it is children it is trying to attract, with packets such as the one I am holding. It is a nice, sleek packet that has a nice feel and has lovely colours, which children will find interesting. A survey done by the Irish Cancer Society - some its representatives are present today, as well as previous representatives in this House - showed these cigarette packets to children. We have all seen the advertisement on UTV. Children find them attractive and it is confirmed that they make them feel good. They look nice and are nice to hold. However, when children were shown packets such as the other one I am showing the committee, they recoiled from them and wondered why would anybody want to smoke. That is the message we seek to give children. It is the truth, not advertising. This picture shows what it does.
Smoking has been killing half the people who do it for so long that many of us have lost a sense of horror and urgency. We tend to accept it as a fact of life and some believe there really is not much more we can do to change it - that smokers will smoke regardless of how hard or expensive we make it for them or how many times we tell them how dangerous it is. That is the commonly held belief, but it is simply not true. The facts show that anti-smoking measures make a difference, a real difference. The more we can find and implement, the bigger that difference will be. I am therefore especially pleased to be here today to open these hearings on the general scheme of the public health (standardised packaging of tobacco) Bill 2013. Standardised packaging is one more useful tool for the task of constructing a smoke-free society, and the sooner we have it the better. I look forward to the presentations of the invited guests and I am confident that these hearings will provide very useful input as we finalise the drafting of the Bill's provisions.
Tobacco use is one of the most preventable public health threats, but nearly 6 million people die from smoking each year globally. On a human level, that is 6 million lives needlessly cut short; on an economic level, that is a substantial section of the health care budget which could be saved or redirected to other areas in need of funding. Governments must take strong action to tackle this global problem. Smokers die, on average, ten years sooner than non-smokers, and the quality of a smoker's last few years are anything but pleasant, as I am sure any member of the committee who has witnessed a relative or friend with lung cancer, heart failure or chronic chest problems can attest. I certainly can. I still see the images of patients sitting on the edge of their beds, gasping for breath despite the aid of oxygen, as they slowly lose the ability to breathe enough oxygen to survive. It is horrible suffocation over a period not of hours or days but of months. The addiction is so strong that I have seen patients sneak out of the ward, with the oxygen cylinder on their backs, to have a cigarette, putting at risk not only their own lives but the lives of all those on the ward. We all know what a match mixed with oxygen can do. That is how strong the addiction is, so we must make sure our children never get addicted.
Sometimes we forget what it really means. If one has watched a loved one waste away from lung cancer, seen a friend lose a limb from tobacco-induced peripheral vascular disease, PVD, or cared for someone who was left disabled by a stroke, one will have a much better sense of what we are dealing with. We must protect our children from these scenarios. The frightening fact is that one in every two children who experiments with cigarettes goes on to become a smoker. A recent European study shows that Ireland has the lowest starting age for smoking among all the EU member states. We also know that one in two who become addicted will die from a tobacco-related disease.
In October this year I launched Ireland's latest policy on smoking, Tobacco Free Ireland. It is the first policy document to be launched under the Healthy Ireland framework. Lifestyle trends and inequality in health outcomes are leading us towards a dangerously unhealthy and unaffordable future. Healthy Ireland is a Government framework which sets out a vision that will improve the health and well-being of all of the population of Ireland over the next 12 years. It puts forward a whole-of-society approach and outlines new arrangements to ensure more effective co-operation to achieve better outcomes for all.
Today we are highlighting the ongoing health issue of tobacco and further regulation of tobacco products. The main aim of Tobacco Free Ireland is to make Ireland tobacco-free - that is, with a smoking rate of less than 5% of the population - by 2025. I believe we can achieve that. The strategy targets the protection of children and the de-normalisation of smoking. Its 63 recommendations include the following: banning smoking anywhere on the premises of primary and secondary schools and child care facilities; promoting tobacco-free areas in our third level campuses, sporting facilities, public parks and beaches; and continuing the good work of creating smoke-free playgrounds and smoke-free campuses for our hospitals and health facilities. The introduction of standardised packaging is just one of the 63 recommendations, but it is a hugely important one. As such, this measure should not be considered in isolation but as part of a suite.
Tobacco Free Ireland builds on many successful past initiatives. The ground-breaking workplace smoking ban in 2004 had a huge impact. Many other worthwhile and effective measures have been introduced in recent years. These include the ban on the sale of ten-packs and candy or sweet cigarettes - one cannot mention candy or sweet cigarettes without thinking of children; the ban on point-of-sale advertising; the HSE's Quit campaign; and the introduction of the graphic warnings on cigarette packets. The Irish public has been very much in favour of these efforts. In a recent report undertaken by the European Commission, Irish citizens were in the top rank in their support of initiatives relating to tobacco. Significantly for the business of today, we were in the top rank in supporting the banning of colours, logos and promotional elements from cigarette packs. I will never tire of saying that I have yet to meet a smoker who wanted their child to smoke.
Government approval has now been received for the publication of the general scheme of a new public health (standardised packaging of tobacco) Bill 2013 and to proceed with the drafting of the legislation based on this general scheme. My chief medical officer, Dr. Holohan, will go into more detail on standardised packaging and the 16 heads of the scheme, so I will outline briefly why I am introducing this particular measure on tobacco.
People love brands. We all know how jealously brand leaders in a range of products guard their brand. Young people, in particular, love brands, even if in the case of their chosen cigarette brand it may well kill them. The tobacco industry knows this and has invested heavily in pack design to communicate specific messages to specific groups. It is working. Despite the ban on tobacco advertising, the ban on point-of-sale display and the introduction of graphic warnings, a gap still exists which I believe can now be eliminated by the introduction of standardised packaging. Australia, which I congratulate, was the first country in the world to take this initiative in December 2012. We are in ongoing contact with our Australian colleagues to ensure our initiative benefits from their experience.
The UK's review of the benefits of standardised packaging is due for completion in March 2014, and Scotland and New Zealand have indicated their intention to follow suit. The initiative is steadily being embraced globally and I thank our UK neighbours for their help.
As regards the possibility of a legal challenge by the tobacco industry, the legislation in Australia was successfully defended by the Australian Government in the courts. That legislation is currently the subject of challenges under World Trade Organization rules. While a legal challenge cannot be ruled out, I am confident that the research available to us demonstrates that standardised packaging will have a positive impact on health and is a proportionate and justified measure. I would go as far as to say that I would be astonished if there is not a legal challenge. The reason for my astonishment would be that the tobacco industry knows that this is going to work and will fight it tooth and nail. The tobacco industry is only interested in its bottom-line profit. What we on this committee are interested in is saving the lives of our citizens and protecting our children.
I am determined that the threat of legal challenges should not be an obstacle in progressing public health policies.
There are always obstacles, legal or otherwise, to any move for change. We must do what is right, not what is easiest. Sometimes we observe how others might proceed, but there are times too when we must lead, and this is one of those times. We must press on with our mission. The challenge is to protect our children, and that is a challenge at which we cannot fail. If we can protect this generation of children from taking up smoking, then lung cancer will become a rarity in 30 or 40 years' time. This morning I was in St. James's Hospital to launch its ten-year cancer audit report. Last year 700 cases of lung cancer were treated at the hospital and only 6% of those patients were non-smokers. We know what we must do.
In conclusion, I look forward to hearing the committee's deliberations on the general scheme, which I and my team shall follow very closely. I look forward to receiving the report. Finally, I thank the Chairman and all of those who will participate in these public hearings for the valuable contribution they will make and for the assistance it will provide to me and my officials in introducing legislation on standardised packaging of tobacco products in Ireland - a move that can help protect and save our children from the fate of those I described in my opening remarks.
