Smoking in cars

The proposal to ban smoking in vehicles being used to carry children may seem like an intrusion of a nanny state gone mad. However, the increase in the number of people, especially young women, who take up smoking justifies nearly any measure to stop people becoming addicted to tobacco.

The tragic reality is that something around 7,000 people die in Ireland every year because of smoking-related illnesses. Smoking-related diseases cost our exchequer around €1bn every year.

The great and insidious influence of the tobacco conglomerates is still used to entrap young people and inflict them with a habit that will change, if not end, their lives. Many people smoke because the habit was an unavoidable part of the environment they grew up in and, if the truth be told, many wish it were otherwise.