Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú: We are here to welcome 20 years of the smoking ban. I recall some of the conversation at the time in the public domain. It was like the roof was going to fall in and that it was going to be impossible. I absolutely agree with Deputy Gould when he says that it was a brave move. I congratulate people on the work that has been done. We have seen that it has been transformative.

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Colm Burke, to his new position. I imagine we will have a number of interactions. He is talking about everything from Healthy Ireland through to dealing with the drug addiction crisis that we have at the minute. I wish him the best of luck but we are all starting from a difficult place on that and the services that are required.

I would much prefer that the business we were dealing with included some of the issues that Deputy Gould spoke about earlier with regard to the Gambling Regulation Bill and all the other issues and many crises that are facing us at the minute. I will be quite honest that I would have much preferred that, in the last changing of the guard, we would have actually gone to the people and to a general election, but so be it. We are where we are.

With regard to the smoking ban, a brave step was taken. We have all seen the benefits, even when those benefits were initially the fact that you came home and your jacket and clothes from the disco were not stinking and you did not always have cigarette burns on your jacket. If I remember correctly, we suddenly discovered that some of the discos and so on needed to have a serious clean-out afterwards because the smoke, to a degree, covered an awful lot of other sins. That is for another time. It was beneficial, even on a personal basis, that people were suddenly not inhaling a significant amount of smoke when they were out, which goes without saying for those who were in workplaces, besides for someone who, as the saying used to go, smoked like a trooper.

The problem is that tobacco firms have also seen a changing set of circumstances. We all initially welcomed vaping. We all know multiple people who used vaping as a harm reduction means. We have all seen those people who were able to wean themselves off cigarettes, who had tried many times before and failed. This was the means by which they did it. That was long before we saw the bubblegum-flavoured vapes and so on. We know that we have to go much further. When talking about kids, including many young kids, it is incredibly worrying. It is not just about vapes but about all the dangers from a health point of view.

Alongside dealing with the issue of vapes, we have to deal with the issue of processed food and sugary drinks. We have seen certain moves that were made on the sugar tax. We know that there is never one silver bullet and that companies will be able to make determinations to find ways round those sorts of circumstances. We need an all-of-government response. That cannot just be about forcing poor people into circumstances. We all know that at times, unfortunately, some of the cheapest foods are the worst types. We know there are issues with advertising and so on. We know the issues with Ireland and alcohol. That goes without saying. We need to look at the evidence relating to the night-time economy.

We need public health assessments before we make any determinations. Sometimes we all think intuitively that if everyone is not coming home from a disco at the one time it would be fine and we would have less violence. What would I have done in that set of circumstances? I am sure we all know people, and I am sure that at one stage of my life I probably was one of them, who would have just stayed out and continued drinking. There would have been no real advantage. If everybody does this, I would assume that really bad things would happen at the end of the night.

I am very glad that Deputy Gould spoke about gambling and the big issue it is. I went to an event at the end of last year organised by the Thirsk Counselling service. Oisín McConville addressed the event. He had 35 minutes to speak about himself, which is his favourite subject. It was brilliant, and Thirsk Counselling now offers a gambling service. This is something we have to look at with regard to drug addiction, the family addiction support network and the sustainability of the services. It is a far longer conversation with regard to the issues that face our communities at this point in time.

Deputy Duncan Smith:  I welcome the opportunity to speak on the statements marking the 20th anniversary of the introduction of the smoking ban. It is appropriate for me as a Labour Party TD to speak about the key role the labour movement played in the introduction of smoke-free workplaces, as well as acknowledging the Tánaiste's leadership on this issue when he was Minister for Health.

The trade union movement was at the heart of the campaign for smoke-free workplaces. It played a crucial role in the delivery of this important public health measure. There were some key individuals in the movement who are worthy of acknowledgement. John Douglas was then assistant general secretary of Mandate. He was a passionate supporter of smoke-free workplaces. His union represented many bar workers throughout the country who were the most exposed to the harmful effects of second-hand smoke and resultant early deaths from cancer and heart disease. As a 20-year-old in 2004, my biggest exposure to second-hand smoke was through socialising as opposed to work, and socialising in workplaces that were bars and nightclubs. The difference it made, literally overnight, was substantial. Mandate was a pioneer on this issue and worked to get more allies through the trade union movement.

Another hero worth acknowledging is Dublin City Council bin lorry worker Mark Wynne, who was central in this regard. He saw how some colleagues were badly affected by the smoking of other workmates. He brought a motion to the IMPACT conference calling on that union to support the introduction of smoke-free workplaces and it did, beginning to turn the tide of support in the wider trade union movement.

Another individual central to bringing the movement along was the CEO of the office of tobacco control, the late Tom Power. He was an active member of the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants who, along with Pat Montague and my colleague Deputy Nash, met many union leaders and encouraged them and explained how the tobacco industry operates in terms of recruiting the next generation of smokers through marketing its products to children and young people and dumping cheap products in the developing world, and how it funds and uses front organisations to protect its interests. Through this process of briefing key leaders and influencers, by October 2003 the entire trade union movement had swung behind the move for a legislative solution to a smoke-free workplace and were out actively campaigning. It acted as a crucial counterweight to the lobbying efforts of some in the hospitality sector and the fronts for big tobacco, many of whom were being lent a willing ear by some in Cabinet at the time and by other TDs on the Government and Opposition benches.

As we mark this day it is right that we celebrate what it did. It removed second-hand smoke from the workplace. This was a pro-public health and a pro-worker policy and it has had a lasting impact. I spoke to a woman today who is a smoker. When I told her I was speaking on this today she said it was the best thing that the Tánaiste ever did. Whether or not he believes this, it certainly will be a defining policy and legacy achievement of his political career. It is one that marked Ireland out in a positive way as a pioneer and leader in this area.

We now have a new frontier in this. We still have targets to meet in terms of reducing tobacco use and smoking. We are well behind the targets that were set by the Minister for Health ten years ago in terms of becoming tobacco free. We need to redouble our efforts. We need to reduce the level of vaping. We need to constantly improve our data in terms of the negative health impacts that vaping has. We cannot lose sight of the fact that we still have work to do in terms of the levels of smoking in this country.

The smoking ban was a big step forward. It was a transformative moment in terms of our attitudes to smoking and public health policy, but it has not delivered the reduced levels of smoking that we want to see. There is more to do. There is a great deal more to do in respect of vaping. In the context of what we are speaking about today, it is worth acknowledging what a legacy achievement this is and what a proud achievement it was for our country. That is worth the debate today.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe: I acknowledge the Minister of State, Deputy Colm Burke, who was a colleague on the Committee of Public Accounts. He added greatly to the body and, in fact, we missed him this morning. I wish him well in his role, in particularly with regard to public health and considering the recommendations of the citizens' assembly on drugs, which I will come back to.

It is interesting that Deputy Smith spoke about the role of the trade union movement in terms of the smoking ban. What is often forgotten is that it is not a smoking ban; it is a workplace smoking ban. Its introduction was very much pushed by workers. The conditions that many people had to work in, just because they were in the hospitality industry, were intolerable yet they were tolerated. The conditions in which many people who worked on aeroplanes had to work were intolerable and yet they were tolerated. Young people now might not believe that in the oxygen-filled environment on aeroplanes, people used to be allowed to smoke.

We only have to look at the figures in terms of the number of young people smoking. I see a large number of young people in the Gallery. Almost 50% of young people between 18 and 24 at the time smoked. There are different categorisations now but the figure is between 6% and 20%, depending on the age split. It is probably closer to 20%. This is a massive reduction.

For fear of challenging my leader's legacy, this is not all because of a decision by the Tánaiste. It was because many people in society, a silent majority in some ways, opposed the existence of tobacco and the prevalence of tobacco in society and wanted to see someone take a decision. I commend the Tánaiste on making that decision and I commend the civil servants in the Department. I also commend the trade union movement and the political parties at the time. In the 2004 local elections, it certainly was not the popular thing to be knocking on the doors about. There were people who were addicted. They were not casual consumers of the product. They were addicted to nicotine. They were not happy with the decision.

We should reflect on the entire debate, not only because of how we treated tobacco but also in the context of how we make decisions in the House. Sometimes there is a silent majority on an issue that maybe is not engaged in politics on a day-to-day basis and that does not engage with social media. They are not the first people who come up in a vox pop on RTÉ or elsewhere. Too often, commercial and sometimes non-commercial lobbies representing a minority of the Irish people take up a large amount of bandwidth in our public conversation.

There is a lesson there for us. While there might not be an immediate political benefit, there is certainly a long-term political benefit to making the right decisions and representing large numbers of Irish people who may have a position on this but are not actively engaged in any particular campaign. Maybe we should not listen to those commercial or non-commercial lobbies that often advocate against the larger public interest.

I will turn to what is probably the next or current great public health challenge, namely, the issue of illegal drugs. First, it is worth noting that in fighting tobacco, and we did set out to have a tobacco-free Ireland, never in our canon of measures did we consider the prohibition of tobacco. There are probably good reasons for that, given the fact it is established in the market as well as its prevalence. There was the real fear that we would essentially drive tobacco sales underground, it would be unregulated, and the substances could be unsafe. Unfortunately, in the illegal drug industry, many of the drugs people are using fall under those terms. They are in the grip of illegal drug gangs. The quantities vary, the potency varies, etc. In all the comparisons we make, it is worth noticing that difference. In trying to achieve a tobacco-free Ireland, we did not take a decision to ban tobacco but instead looked at a public health response.

On the issue of illegal drugs, the Government established a citizens’ assembly. I will not use the word “progressive”, but there were quite challenging findings made by citizens’ assembly. It came very close to voting to legalise cannabis. While I am not entirely certain if I hold that view at the moment, that is what the citizens’ assembly proposed. It had very strong support for a public health response rather than a criminal response to illegal drugs. This has been sent to a newly established committee of the House, which is chaired by Deputy McNamara. We have ten months left in this Dáil and I hope we will complete our report on that because we should respect the time, effort and work that was done by the citizens in the citizens’ assembly. Also, I want political parties and the next Government to tackle this issue of illegal drugs. Deputy Shortall and I represent a constituency where, in many places, the activities and sales made by the illegal drugs industry are open and obvious. I am not saying the answer to that is to legalise them, license them and allow them to open corner shops, but we cannot also turn a blind eye to the fact the illegal drugs industry is operating. The people who are using them are addicted in no different way, but perhaps in a more profound way, than the people who were the victims of the tobacco lobby 30 or 40 years ago. They were also addicted.

I read many of the contributions to the citizens’ assembly, and I thought one of them was really powerful. Somebody said that if their child were addicted to alcohol, they would first send them somewhere to be treated for that addiction, but if your child is addicted to an illegal drug, there is also the additional challenge of worrying whether you also have to be with them in court at the same time they are seeking help for their addiction. Ireland is on the cusp of an important decision here. We cannot do anything that makes this worse. We cannot do anything that exposes young people to a greater threat of addiction, but we do have to wrestle this issue back from the illegal drugs industry and take the people who are the victims back from its control. There is also the millions and millions of euro that is washed through these gangs, which infiltrates communities in many ways.

I will use this opportunity, the first occasion on which the Minister of State, Deputy Colm Burke, is present, to draw parallels between the way we have dealt with tobacco, which I believe is successful, and the challenge the Minister of State has in responding to the committee's recommendations and the report made by the citizens’ assembly. I wish him good luck in that. Our own local drugs task forces in Ballymun and Finglas would be delighted to meet with the Minister of State to discuss the challenges. They would no doubt mention the core funding they believe should be increased. Over time, we have diluted the resources and the ability of the drugs task forces to act as key stakeholders in our communities. As they have done with the Minister of State’s predecessor and every other predecessor in that role, they want to be very actively engaged with the Minister of State, so I invite him to Finglas and Ballymun to meet with those drugs task forces. I also invite him to meet with some of the Deputies in the House who may have been working on this issue for longer than I have done. There are a number of us. Deputies Ó Ríordáin, Hourigan and I, as well as many others, would be happy to sit down with the Minister of State to talk about how we might help and support him to make a courageous decision, as was made with tobacco.

As I said, I wish the Minister of State luck on it. It is not easy. By no means is it easy. I have one caveat, though. Since the recent referendum, there has been a suggestion that anything "woke" needs to now be rejected. People who are addicted are not a woke issue. People who are addicted have a medical issue and the State needs to respond. I am not underestimating the complexity of the response, but I urge the Minister of State to do everything he can.