Minister: We’re on track to be tobacco-free country by 2025

JUNIOR health minister Frank Feighan has said that Ireland is on ‘the right track’ to be tobacco-free by 2025.

According to the latest data available from last year, 17% of Irish people are smokers, with 14% saying they are daily smokers and the remaining 3% saying they smoke occasionally. The 17% figure is down from the 23% reported in 2015.

Being tobacco-free is defined as having less than 5% smoking prevalence in the country.

Minister Feighan, who is responsible for public health, well-being and the National Drugs Strategy in the Department of Health, said ‘we’re certainly determined to try’ to reach the 2025 goal. ‘It is possible, we are on the right track and we’re decreasing an average of 1% to 2% [per year],’ he said.

‘[Over] the last five years our rates dropped from 23% to 17%, which was 165,000 fewer smokers, and it’s my hope smokers now will try to quit as soon as possible because it can avoid them from more serious outcomes from Covid-19,’ he also told Newstalk Breakfast.

Minister Feighan is also pushing for the passage of the Public Health ( Tobacco and Nicotine Inhaling Products) Bill, which will curtail the sale of tobacco products at places or events that are intended for children.

It will also seek to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to children following a recent Health Research Board evidence review which linked the use of the devices at a young age to later smoking in adolescents. Yesterday, Tobacco Free Ireland – which set the country’s target of being tobacco-free by 2025 – released its annual report for 2019.

According to the report, a smoking status question is now set to be included in the Census next year.

This is to get more detailed information on smoking at a national level to inform future policies.

However, smokers’ groups Forest Ireland called the inclusion of the smoking question on the Census a ‘gross invasion of privacy’.

The group’s spokesman, John Mallon, added: ‘The Government must accept that adults have a right to smoke and that choice must be respected. Forcing smokers to quit a legal habit is unacceptable at any time.’