Thankfully, I have never smoked a cigarette in my life. With regard to tobacco products and nicotine inhaling products, I would support measures that would protect children by placing restrictions on both the advertising and display of such products, including how they are presented on the packaging of the products. Addiction to nicotine is a costly addiction, both in terms of a person's health and the price of the product as well as the cost to the health service of dealing with the health consequences of this addiction. The cost of cigarette smoking to the Irish health service is over €460 million annually, with total societal costs exceeding €10.7 billion, which includes lost productivity with almost 100 people dying weekly from tobacco-related illnesses. These statistics are staggering. According to the Royal College of Surgeons, a 20-year-old male who is a cigarette smoker is expected to spend an extra €28,000 in healthcare costs over his lifetime. Cigarette smoking-related illnesses result in the hospitalisation of around 1,000 people every week. While using vapes is not necessarily a great solution to weaning people off cigarettes, it is better than people being on cigarettes. Vape use does involve health concerns and people coming off cigarettes should also engage with the HSE's programmes assisting people to quit smoking. Selling vapes to a minor is a criminal offence that could result in fines or imprisonment. The licensing of and restrictions on the sale of the vapes will go a long way towards preventing minors from accessing these products. However, restricting flavoured vapes also impacts adults and is not productive. Adults should be allowed to make a decision on such matters themselves. I have many people who have given up smoking and have had to take up vapes. It is the lesser of two evils. We know that vapes are not healthy but we need to look at the Minister of State's definition with regard to flavours because there are a lot of flavours out there like menthol and others that seem to be acceptable. People make choices. They did it with cigarettes. They used to take John Player, Major and things like that, so people are very good at making these decisions about what is good for them.

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