I thank the Minister of State for coming to the Chamber to present this important legislation. I welcome this valuable Bill although, as I will speak to in a moment, the scope of it is far too narrow. I would like to put a few questions to the Minister of State on that and she might be able to address them in her wrap-up. As a starting point, we cannot be in any doubt that when we consider the prevalence of vaping and the growth in its use, particularly among young people, greater regulation is needed from a public health perspective. To put it very simply, products containing nicotine are addictive and harmful. When we see such a huge uptake in vaping, it must be treated as a public health issue. It should not be viewed, as some might advocate, as somehow better because vapes do not contain the degree of potency of ordinary cigarettes. I am sure the Minister of State has often heard the Taoiseach describe vapes as the revenge of the tobacco industry. I fully agree with him on that particular point. It looks like around 50 million vapes will be sold in Ireland this year with a value of about €400 million. The industry has grown from nothing in a very sudden and dramatic fashion. Almost all the disposable vapes that are consumed in Ireland come from China. Their sale is banned among teenagers in China, but they are exported here where they are freely consumed. Vape companies are making huge profits from making nicotine addicts. The products are clearly marketed at children. They have flavours like bubblegum, cotton candy and marshmallow. These are clearly designed to be attractive to children and young people, to get them consuming them and to put them at risk of addiction to these unhealthy but also costly products. Almost every European country, including Ireland, has a form of basic regulation with respect to vapes and e-cigarettes, but the trend recently has been not only to tighten the level of restrictions and to tighten sales, but also to tighten the flavourings used in vapes. That is the case in Belgium, France and in Germany. The UK has gone even further and has introduced a ban on disposable vapes in their entirety. While the public health element is foremost in our minds in this Bill and in the role of the Minister of State, public health is not the only issue in that there is an environmental impact as well, in particular when it comes to disposable vapes. When my former Green Party colleague Ossian Smyth was a Minister of State, he led the charge on that environmental point in the previous Government. He worked very closely with the former Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, to develop legislation that was comprehensive on the issue of vaping. That Bill sought to ban disposable vapes, limit vape flavours to tobacco, as other countries are now doing, and ban point-of-sale display and advertising of vape products in shops other than in vape shops. That was comprehensive legislation and Cabinet approval was sought and achieved for it in September 2024. Over a year later I am curious as to why it has taken so long for this legislation to appear, given there had been approval for the heads of the Bill and for it to come to the House for a Second Stage debate. Why has the Bill shrunk so dramatically in that time period? That is not really clear from what has been presented to us today. What is the reason for that delay and why are two Bills necessary to deal with the issues given that when the Cabinet gave approval to the measures in September last year they were very easily comprehended within a single Bill? The work was done back then. The heads of the Bill were ready to go. While I welcome this Bill, and will support it, how is it that the really valuable work on environmental health and public health measures that had already received Cabinet approval have been left on the long finger? One or two others Deputies asked this question, which I ask the Minister of State to address in her conclusions. I refer to engagement with the EU on technical regulation information systems notifications. When a member state is looking to put a significant restriction on a product freely in circulation across member states, there has to be a notification process. Have the Government started the notification process or is it waiting for this Bill to pass before it does so? If the Minister is taking that approach, I urge her to reconsider and to start the recognition and regulation process now, because the earlier we start the better. If we do the two processes - the consideration of the Bill in this House and in the other House, and the engagement with the European authorities - at the same time, that will allow us to enjoy the important health and environmental benefits from this legislation at an earlier time. On a broader point, in 2023 legislation was passed to prevent the sale of vapes to children and to only permit the sale of vapes through licensed retailers in the same way tobacco retailers are licensed. We all know that Bill is not being fully followed. It is clear that vapes are still being sold in unlicensed premises such as mobile phone shops, and they are being sold to children. I am curious as to why a retail licensing system under the 2023 legislation has not been set up yet. Why is it still possible that vapes are being sold to children? If legislation that has been on the books for more than two years is not being fully enforced, I wonder how the Minister of State can be confident that the valuable new rules that she is looking to bring through in this legislation will be enforced, which is a worry. A number of Deputies have raised tobacco pouches and how they have become incredibly prevalent in terms of consumption, and how they are being advertised very widely in a wide range of social situations. The tobacco industry seems to have moved another step forward. It has almost gotten past vapes before the legislation has caught up. I urge the Minister of State and the Government to look at this point. We all recognise that we did not legislate in time for vapes. Vapes were allowed to take hold. They were allowed be making the sales of 50 million units every year in Ireland. They were earning €400 million in income for their producers without a proper regulatory framework being put in place. We are only catching up on part of that right now in the Bill. Let us not make that same mistake again. We have the opportunity. Tobacco pouches are about to become a major public health issue. Let us not wait like we did with vapes. Let us act quickly and bring forward legislation based on science. That requires the Department undertaking some serious research. The precautionary principle needs to apply here. We know for 40, 50 or 60 years that the tobacco industry lied about the impact of cigarettes. That is a proven statement. We know that it took us too long to understand the impact of vapes, particularly on young people. Let us not allow that delay to take place when it comes to tobacco pouches. Let us take a precautionary approach. Let us limit their sales at least away from those under 18. Adults, of course, can make choices of their own. When it comes to protecting children, we need to act now, not delay, adopt a precautionary principle approach and ensure that we can protect young people from any potential health risks and harms that come from tobacco pouches. When we even think of what they are composed of, we have to strongly suspect that there are going to be long-term health risks from them. I thank the Minister of State for the opportunity to speak on this. I look forward to supporting this Bill, but it is important that she answers those questions about why the other important elements that Cabinet had previously given approval to - elements that would have improved environmental health and public health - have been left out. If they are not being included in this Bill, when will the Minister of State bring them forward?

Sentiment score: 0.17