As there are no amendments on Report Stage, we will proceed to Fifth Stage.
Public Health (Tobacco) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Report and Final Stages
Bill reported without amendment.
Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass."
I thank the Deputies who have supported the Bill and contributed to the debate on it as it has passed through the House. Their support for the important work of reducing the number of smokers is heartening. The Department of Health and the HSE continuously monitor the marketing tactics of the tobacco industry. As these tactics evolve, so too must our legislative and policy framework. I am pleased that the legislation which was introduced to fulfil our obligation to change our laws on the minimum pricing of tobacco allows me to regulate the industry's various promotion tactics. In that context, I take the opportunity to display an example of the new tactics being used by the industry to promote new products and thereby ensnare young people, including those under the age of 18 years. As I have said previously, the findings of a 2006 survey showed that 78% of Irish smokers started to smoke before they reached that age. Here we have an advertisement that is slim and nicely presented and which has the name of a high-end fashion magazine attached to it.
I am afraid we are not allowed to display such items in the Chamber.
The images being displayed on cigarette packets show the reality of what smoking does to people. We want them to understand the consequences of smoking include peripheral vascular disease, the amputation of legs, rotten lungs and cancer. When they see these images on the front of cigarette packets every time they open them, I hope they will realise the harm they are doing to themselves. We are here to help smokers and want to help them to quit. We are not anti-smoker but anti-smoking.
As has been said on many occasions during the discussion of the Bill, the health, social and economic damage caused by smoking is immense. Every year in Ireland approximately 5,200 people die prematurely from diseases caused by tobacco use. It is estimated that the HSE spends approximately €1 billion each year to treat tobacco-related diseases. We are seeking to reduce the public pay bill by €1 billion. I suggest it would be better if we could reduce the health bill by €1 billion.
I discussed tobacco issues - specifically, the new tobacco products directive - at the EU Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee hearings in Brussels on Monday. I will mention some stark facts revealed at that forum. Some 700,000 people in the European Union die from tobacco-related illnesses every year. It is estimated that EU public health expenditure on treating smoking-related diseases is €25.3 billion annually. Some €8.3 billion is lost in productivity within the European Union each year as a result of deaths, absenteeism and early retirements linked with smoking.
As I have said before, no parent wants his or her children to smoke, regardless of whether he or she is a smoker or a non-smoker. As Minister for Health, I intend to reduce the number of smokers in Ireland. This can only be achieved by means of a combination of measures, including raising awareness, education and price increases. We will develop legislation relating to tobacco products and smoke-free measures. We will support cessation services for those who really want to escape nicotine addiction. Such measures are about saving lives, rather than about interfering with smoker's rights. I am not anti-smoker; as I said, I am anti-smoking. I expect many tobacco measures to be discussed next week when I meet all of my European counterparts at an informal health summit in Dublin.
I conclude by reaffirming the Government's commitment to tackling smoking in Ireland. Our aim is to de-normalise tobacco and make it socially unacceptable for our children and young people to smoke. I again thank the House for its support for the Bill. I will continue to seek its support for the tobacco initiatives I will bring to the Oireachtas in the future. This is about saving lives, protecting citizens and shielding our children from this killer habit.
I commend the Minister, his officials and everybody involved in the production of this legislation. The Minister touched on a number of issues, including the need for us to be more adaptable in order to keep ahead of the tobacco companies and the way in which they are marketing. The new package is just an example of what measures they are resorting to in order to try to tackle this kind of legislation.
The Minister needs to focus his efforts on teenagers. It is striking that teenagers, in particular young girls, are taking up smoking or continuing to smoke. We have grown up with the message rammed home to us through images like those shown earlier, but it seems not to be getting through to those who are starting on the path. If we stop them from starting smoking, we stop it fully. Addiction seems to be the only word for this. The Minister expressed the wish that the image might shock those who open the box. However, the very fact they have bought the box in the first place and spent the kind of money necessary to do so shows they are gone beyond that stage. We are dealing with addiction. In the Minister's next focus on this issue, we need to focus in on areas that assist people in tackling that addiction, in the same way we do this with regard to other drugs. Tobacco is a drug that is killing people.
I commend the legislation. There is still a lot of work to be done this area. It cannot just be done by the Legislature, however. It has to be done by everybody involved.
I wish the Minister well in the project this legislation is intended to progress. It is a pity the health spokespersons cannot all be present because they are at the health committee, which is a bit bizarre. I know Deputy Ó Caoláin was involved and was very supportive of this legislation.
There will, hopefully, be other measures to follow up on this legislation in future. For everything else we eat and drink, the ingredients are listed, and there needs to be a move towards listing or limiting some of the ingredients contained in cigarettes which are sold to the general public. There also needs to be more action in terms of taxation and whatever other moves we can take to try to discourage people further at this stage, so future generations and the future HSE does not have such a high cost in terms of the health bill which, as the Minister mentioned, is estimated at €1 billion this year. We must also consider everything that flows from that, including the families that are affected when a person is in hospital or in dire straits because of the consequences of smoking in an earlier part of their life or right through their life.
I wish the legislation well. I hope it will have the desired effect and cut down on the number of people, particularly young people, who are smoking, and that society as a whole starts to learn the full consequences of people smoking. I ask that, at a future date, we start to address the issue of the ingredients contained in cigarettes and start to ban some of the ingredients. While that might not necessarily reduce the number of cigarettes smoked, it might reduce their effect.
I wish the Minister well in his endeavours on this very important subject. As a retailer who has been selling cigarettes for over 20 years, I have seen and studied people's habits when it comes to cigarette smoking. As the Minister himself said, it is terribly important to do everything we possibly can to stop the younger generation from starting smoking. I have every sympathy, as I know the Minister has, for hardened, addicted smokers who find it terribly difficult to give up smoking and who probably, in many cases, will never give up smoking - they will leave this world continuing their habit. Nonetheless, I commend the Government in all of its endeavours in trying to stop young people smoking. There is no good reason that a young person should make that move to take the first cigarette and eventually get hooked and form a lifelong habit. It is breaking them financially and crippling their health so, of course, the Minister is right to do everything he can to stop this.
That said, however, there is one issue on which I have had a difficulty with this and previous Governments, which sought to price cigarettes very high in comparison to the rest of Europe. As the statistics prove, this has left a big opening for the illegal tobacco trade. There is no reason in the world that a person in Ireland should be paying €10 for a pack of cigarettes when a person in another part of Europe can pay €1.80 or €2 for the same thing. This is leaving the illegal trade wide open.
I wish the Minister good luck in his endeavours. He should always remember that, for some of the people who are smoking today, nothing the Minister or the Government does will stop them. However, if we can stop young people, the Minister is to be highly commended in that regard.
I congratulate the Minister on bringing in the legislation, which is sending out a very strong message. I hope that, in time, we will see lives saved and a decrease in the number of people dying from smoking related diseases.
Question put and agreed to.