Why Ireland and Europe matter
Saturday, October 27, 2012 at 12:03 Is there a more anti-smoking country in Europe than Ireland?
We're about to find out.
The Irish government will shortly deliver its long-awaited tobacco review. This is like a White Paper. It's the start of a process that can take two or three years and often ends with legislation and a raft of new laws.
We have no idea what will be in the review but we suspect it may include proposals to ban smoking in cars (with or without children), prohibit smoking in parks and beaches, introduce plain packaging and so on.
Unfortunately people in Britain tend to ignore developments in Dublin. Well, Ireland matters.
Ten years ago Forest wanted to set up a group in Ireland. We could see what was coming down the line (a ban on smoking in pubs and bars) and we wanted to help organise some opposition.
It's difficult to fight on more than one front and in 2002 our immediate priority was London where Ken Livingstone was threatening to follow New York's example and introduce a unilateral smoking ban.
So we focussed on London and did quite a good job of helping to see off that particular threat.
Ireland however was neglected and we know what happened next. Legislation was passed virtually unopposed, Scotland's first minister Jack McConnell then picked up the baton (using the "success" of the Irish ban as a barometer), and that led to smoking bans in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Forest Eireann was finally set up two years ago and made a promising start in terms of media coverage. Stage two of the campaign will start when the Irish government publishes its tobacco review and it promises to be a long, hard battle.
Health minister James Reilly is described as "vehemently anti-smoking". I understand that he is also one of the least popular ministers in Ireland, which is saying something in a country where voters seem to regard all politicians with contempt.
Micheál Martin, the current leader of Fianna Fáil, the main Opposition party, was the under fire health minister when the smoking ban was introduced in Ireland. Arguably, it saved his career.
The danger is that Reilly may see the war on tobacco as an opportunity to flex his muscles too, although most people laughed when he suggested earlier this year that smoking should be banned on beaches.
There is another scenario and it's this: both the British and Irish governments will postpone further tobacco control measures until the European Commission has published its own Tobacco Products Directive.
We were expecting an announcement very soon but there's been a little local difficulty in Brussels. You may have read about it.
As luck would have it (I'm being ironic, in case you're wondering), the next country to hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union is – Ireland.
So there we have it. Half a million people in Britain expressed opposition to plain packaging in a 'public' consultation but that may count for nothing if unelected bureaucrats and prohibitionist politicians in Dublin and Brussels get their way.
Reader Comments (3)
I look forward to yet another condescending, socially divisive, depressing raft of legislation being enacted purely to massage the egos of pointless nonentities such as Dalli and even less important political nobodies such as Childers. That is the only purpose of this sorry waste of tax payers money.
At what point did our society become so vile and so dishonest that people such as these are allowed to get their way more often than not?
"I hope that this will not lead to precisely what Big Tobacco wants, the further blocking and delaying of a strong Tobacco Product Directive."
It never seems to occur to these blinkered fanatics that it is not just "Big Tobacco" that is opposed to these draconian and unnecessary rafts of legislation, but also the millions of normal consumers of tobacco products, and indeed many more who are not consumers but who can see this type of spiteful legislation for what it is.
I keep coming back to the question "Just who the hell do they think they are to dictate to me how I should live my life?"
There really should be a massive cull of all these interfering busybodies. They serve no useful purpose at all.
The State agency in Ireland tasked to promote and police the smoking restrictions is the Health & Safety Executive, (HSE). Interestingly, this same HSE is the State's protector of children and should the yes vote prevail in the referendum, any child found to be needing it, will be removed from the parents and taken into the care of the HSE. On Vincent Browne last week, we learned that 42 children currently in the care of the HSE have gone missing !!!
Yes, you read that right. Nobody knows where they are !! They have just disappeared and nobody is responsible, nobody has lost their job and the precious children have not showed up since. How's that for "State Care" ala the HSE ? The same Agency never tires from telling anyone that will listen that it is child abuse to smoke with any 'precious' children present.
The hypocrisy is staggering.