MEP says Government should sue tobacco firms

THE Government should sue tobacco companies to recoup the costs of healthcare for smokers, a Labour MEP has said.

Nessa Childers said the costs involved could no longer be tolerated and the tobacco companies should be made pay them.

“We must curb the massive related healthcare costs,” she said. “It costs the Irish state €1 billion per year to provide health services for smokers. These days, we simply can’t tolerate this any longer.

“The Government should consider taking a legal case against big tobacco companies for the health costs their industry is knowingly causing the Irish state.”

She pointed to the US, where states issued lawsuits which forced the major tobacco companies to agree multi-billion-dollar contributions towards the costs of treating ill smokers.

It is not the first time such a call has been made for similar action to be taken by the Government here.

In 1999 the cross-party Oireachtas Committee on Health said civil legal proceedings should be brought to “recoup expenditure incurred in the treatment of tobacco-related illnesses and other expenditure resulting from such illnesses”.

Such proceedings, the committee’s report stressed, “should be taken against each of the tobacco companies whose cigarette products are sold in the state”.

The report’s author was Alan Shatter, then an opposition TD and now the Justice Minister.

However, it is not expected that the Government will launch such proceedings.

The Department of Health considered the issue when Fianna Fáil was in government, but ultimately decided against taking a case because of legal advice received from the offices of the attorney general and chief state solicitor.

Sources at the time said the advice suggested such a case would involve “astronomical legal costs without any guarantee of success”.

Previous estimates of the cost of healthcare for smokers have ranged from between €500 million to €2bn a year.

However, junior minister Roisin Shortall recently told the Dáil that if smoking rates were not reduced, it would cost the health service about €23bn over the course of the next 10 years.

“Smoking is the greatest single cause of preventable illness and premature death in Ireland, killing over 5,700 people a year,” she said.

“Every year, premature deaths caused by tobacco use in Ireland are far greater than the combined death toll from car accidents, fires, heroin, cocaine, murder and suicide.

“The impact of smoking on healthcare costs in terms of treatment services for cancer, cardiovascular disease and respiratory diseases is significant.

“In the next 10 years, if we do not make progress on reducing the impact of tobacco, it is estimated to cost our health service in excess of €23bn.”