Backing for Reilly's tobacco plain package bill

Three quarters of non-smokers and more than half of smokers support plans for plain packaging on tobacco.

A poll showed 74% of non-smokers and 58% of smokers support the removal of all branding from cigarette packs.

Planned legislation by James Reilly provides for the introduction of large graphic warnings on cigarette packs and makes it illegal for tobacco companies to use colour, text, and packet size to market cigarettes.

The Ipsos MRBI survey was conducted for the ISPCC, Barnardos, the Children’s Rights Alliance, the Asthma Society of Ireland, the Irish Heart Foundation, Irish Cancer Society, and the Irish Thoracic Society.

Dr Reilly said the survey showed people supported the bill because they knew the harm caused by smoking.

He introduced the bill at a meeting of the Oireachtas committee on health and children yesterday.

“I still have images of patients sitting out on the edge of their beds, gasping for breath despite the aid of oxygen, as they slowly lost their ability to breath enough oxygen to survive — horrible suffocation over a period of not hours or days but months,” said Dr Reilly.

The study showed that, after people in the over-65 age bracket, 15 to 24-year-olds were most supportive of the bill.

The highest regional support was in Munster and Leinster, at 74%, with lowest in Dublin, at 66%.

However, a Red C poll for the smokers’ group Forest Éireann shows just 9% of people believe plain packaging is most likely to lower the number of young people smoking.

Thought more effective are mandatory health education in schools (51%), tackling the illicit trade (23%) and banning adults from buying cigarettes for children (14%).

Public hearings on the Public Health (Standardised Packaging of Tobacco) Bill 2013 will be held by the committee in 2014.