Good timing. Give me a second.

Sentiment score: 0.22

I was trying to give Deputy Cummins a nod there. This is the third vaping Bill we have discussed. Another is on the way. This piecemeal approach is not working. A comprehensive Bill that encapsulates everything the Minister of State is looking to do in one Bill would have gone through the Houses much more quickly. While we are waiting for these Bills to be passed, our communities are suffering. In Clondalkin village, the proximity of vape shops to schools is a major issue. A person only has to walk around Clondalkin village at lunchtime to see hoards of young people in their school uniforms going in and out of vape shops, no doubt getting vapes and then coming out onto the road vaping. The Minister of State will see that is a problem. They are in their uniforms. They are openly vaping. They are vaping with their friends. It also leads to antisocial behaviour at night because a number of young people congregate around these vape shops. It is leading to residents feeling intimidated. There have been reports of antisocial behaviour, open drug use and open drug dealing in and around vape shops and other shops at night. Residents have reported this to An Garda Síochána. The Garda station is only around the corner, but the Garda's reaction in getting around to resolving this problem needs to be addressed. It does not seem to have the resources in Clondalkin Garda station. We have also seen environmental problems associated with single use vapes. People who walk down any street in any village will see discarded single-use vapes littering our villages. The Sinn Féin representative for Lucan, Derren Ó Brádaigh, informed me earlier that this was a big issue for Lucan Tidy Towns. Lucan Tidy Towns does great work in cleaning up our area, but a lot of that time is taken up tediously peeling off stickers that are in these vapes. I had to ask someone what the stickers were for. They are to protect the batteries in the vapes until they are used. Young people take off the stickers and stick them to a bin or pole and this is causing big problems for how our areas look. They look unkempt and untidy and it takes a long time to remove them. It can be demoralising for such organisations as the Lucan Tidy Towns group in the work they do. They are cleaning up and going about their work only to suddenly come across a bin full of stickers that looks absolutely terrible. There are also long-term environmental impacts of disposable vapes, for example, the plastic. They are powered by batteries that have lithium and copper in them. The circuit boards inside disposable vapes contain a number of heavy metals and rare minerals, including cobalt, lead and mercury. In addition to the unsightly litter, this can have an impact on soil if they are discarded on grass verges, for example, and on water if they get into our waterways. I have a bit of time left so I will mention something else. Vapes came along and there was no regulation in place. No one knew what impact they would have and the Government is trying to play catch-up now. When something that is unregulated comes in, it can lead to wider implications. I spoke to the Minister of State before about nitrous oxide and how it was not regulated. As no legislation has been put in place to tackle nitrous oxide use, commonly known as laughing gas, in our communities, there is a wild west situation in our areas. People who walk down any street will see discarded nitrous oxide canisters. When they first came in, they were small silver bullets and then they increased to big industrial-sized nitrous oxide canisters. These large nitrous oxide canisters have no legitimate use. They are not for the catering trade or medical trade. They have no legitimate use, yet - the Minister of State participated in the same debate as me and saw how - a journalist was able to order these overnight and got them the next day. We need to see something in place to stop this because it is having a long-term impact on the health of young people. It is also having an impact on people driving. There is still no test for gardaí to be able to test people for nitrous oxide. The HSE adolescent addiction services are playing a bit of catch-up in how to deal with it because they do not know the long-term effects. We need to start to see legislation in place. I have brought forward legislation that passed First Stage and that would make it a lot harder for nitrous oxide to end up in the hands of young people. The connection with vapes is - I will bring it back around - that the same marketing ploys are being used for nitrous oxide as are used for single-use vapes. They are brightly coloured and flavoured. They are marketed towards young children. I have always asked myself, if someone needs to use this in the dental industry or catering industry, why they would need to have a raspberry- or blueberry-flavoured nitrous oxide. That goes to show it is directly targeted at young children.

Sentiment score: -0.06