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(Speaker Continuing)
[Senator John Crown:   ] I am not getting at the Minister about this, but I want to give him a brief timeline and I will not name names. May 3: Publication, introduction.
May 9: Second Stage.
May 18: Meeting with senior Department of Health officials.
May 25: Telephone call with senior Department of Health officials.
May 29: Meeting with senior Department of Health officials.
June 2012: Meeting with senior Department of Health officials.
E-mails sent on July 16 with proposed amendments not answered.
E-mails sent on August 22. No answer, no voice mail left.
August 22: Further e-mail sent to relevant official.
August 12: Telephone call. No answer. Left voice mail.
August 27: Telephone calls. No answer.
October 4: E-mail finally received, again with a commitment to expeditious processing.
November 1: Further e-mail from me to the Minister outlining my concern over the delays.
November 2: Response from official; still nothing happening.
November 21: E-mail from official to one of my co-sponsors; again no particular action happening.
December 12: E-mail back confirming that the Department of Justice and Equality had made observations.
December 21, almost one year ago: Meeting in Hawkins House with very senior officials of the Department of Health. Told the Bill is a priority and we would see action by 30 January 2013. Nothing.
March 26: E-mails seeking clarification. March 26: E-mail back; will reply once the AG considers it in detail.
April 8: further advice being sought from AG.
April 10: An attempt to set up another meeting. Three months after the deadline I wish we would be told that we had the guidelines available to us.
April 24: Further meeting.
June 25: E-mail sent. Telephone call to official - no answer. Left voice mail.
June 27: E-mail from official later; would contact AG's office at some unspecified date.
July 1: E-mail from official, AG's office. Will update her later that week.
July 17: More feedback required from AG.
September 17: At this stage we are getting up to a real-time account of it. With a little action by the Executive the Minister has the status, clout, authority and the interest to make this happen.
We are proposing a number of amendments on Committee Stage we believe address many of the technical concerns the Minister described as constituting serious flaws with the Bill. Some of us are new to this business, but we are prepared to take on board any of the advice the Minister has to offer to strengthen the Bill.
It was the intent when the Bill was proposed that the summer of 2012 would be a time when children, legislatively, would have been protected during the summer holiday period from the consequences of adults smoking in cars with them. That did not happen. I then hoped it would happen in time for the summer of 2013; it has not. Let us please not delay it any further than this.
If I may, I will turgidly recite some of the reasons for that because in the aftermath of last night's events, the right-wing, pseudo-libertarian, pseudo-free speech lobby are in full thunder crowing and gloating over their victory for free speech and against the nanny state. I am not a great believer in the nanny state, but I will make a few comments on why the nanny state is important in this regard. It is beyond controversy that there is an increase in the incidence of asthma and bronchitis as a result of second-hand smoke. It is well understood there is a unique peril associated with the level of tobacco smoke and its chemical constituent in the small confines of a car. The data are clear that when one cigarette is smoked the level of particulates is 30 times higher for a child in a car than the level the Environmental Protection Agency would be ringing sirens telling people to get off the streets, go into their houses and close the windows. It is 30 times higher, yet it is still legally possible for a child to be subjected to it.
The exposure after one hour in a car with smokers is the same as that which a fire woman or fireman would experience in four to eight hours of fighting a bush fire. The emissions are five times higher from a cigarette smoked in the car than from the tail pipe of the car during the period in which smoking one cigarette would take place. One hour spent in a smoky car produces the same occupational exposure as eight hours in a smoky pub which, thankfully, only a few of us have memories of due to the inspired action of one of the Minister's predecessors, the then Minister, Deputy Micheál Martin, action we hope the Minister will emulate with a series of innovative anti-smoking measures.
The question has arisen as to whether there is this problem. The advocacy groups, the pseudo-civil libertarians who envelope themselves in the cloak of libertarianism, state that sensible, responsible parents will not do this anyway and, therefore, the nanny state does not need to legislate. The evidence is all around us that sadly, parents do it although they do not do it very often.
The real reason for this Bill is its educational value. It has had an educational value because I personally cannot recall any public debate ever taking place in this country on the scale of the Second Stage debate on the issue of smoking in cars with children. Suddenly, it was an issue people discussed, and it gives that powerful bully pulpit to children themselves because they hear the arguments and they say, "Mammy, don't be smoking" or "Daddy, don't be smoking."
For all these reasons, it is critically important that we deal with this small, tight, focused Bill. We have done the heavy lifting for the Departments of Health and Justice and Equality. We introduced the amendments. Can we get a commitment that we will get this Bill passed quickly? We can then join in a full embrace with the Minister in his other great anti-smoking initiatives we would like to support.
After three years of this Government the score card in terms of anti-smoking legislation - this is not a dig at anybody - is as follows: considered four Bills, rejected one last night, promise of another one - the plain packaging Bill - next year. We are still turgidly gluing the smoking in cars Bill through a treacly bureaucracy nearly two years later and the only Bill that has been passed is the one that makes it easier to sell cheap cigarettes to children and other adults. I know that is not something the Minister wanted; it was enforced on him by inappropriate actions of external agencies from without the State that put him under judicial and commercial pressure to do this but. Sadly, however, that is the track record. Let us start by fixing it today.
I am not sure if we will have an opportunity to speak as we go through the Bill.
Acting Chairman (Senator Paschal Mooney): Yes.
Senator Colm Burke: I thank the Minister for coming into the House for a second time this week. I welcome the amendments tabled by the proposers of the Bill and thank them for the work they have done in preparing them and the Bill which is very detailed.
On the issue of banning smoking in cars with passengers under 18 years, in fairness, the amendments deal with the issue of producing evidence to prove someone is over 18, but would it be an easier way of dealing with the issue if smoking in cars carrying any passengers was banned completely? From a Garda implementation point of view, that may be an easier way of doing it. I put that forward as an idea to consider from the point of view of enforcement. What Senator John Crown has brought forward will protect children, but from the point of view of enforcement, an easier way of processing this would be to ban smoking in cars. I do not know whether that is worth looking at once the legislation is passed. The Minister might examine that issue also.
Senator Mark Daly: I welcome the Minister back to the House. My Seanad colleagues have outlined the timeline on this issue, but this is a more fundamental criticism of the system that has allowed it to continue for so long. In other areas where I am dealing with Departments I am told by officials that unless the Minister tells them to do it, it does not happen. We call ourselves legislators, but because the officials will not let things happen and things do not happen, we are not able or allowed to legislate. When I spoke to Senator John Crown's Bill last night, I referred to the piece of paper that was in every Department on why something could not be done. |
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