The Department of Health is to begin consultations on banning packets of 10 cigarettes, it was announced yesterday.
Speaking at the launch of the Office of Tobacco Control's annual report for 2005 at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin, the Minister of State for Health, Sean Power, said the ban would be introduced as part of further anti-smoking measures.
The idea behind banning 10-packs, the Minister said, was to put the cost of a packet of cigarettes out of the reach of young people.
The industry would be given sufficient notice of start dates so that any 10 packs in stock could be sold, he said, and the ban would not cause undue hardship.
Other measures to be included in the consultation process are a ban on tobacco advertising where cigarettes are sold, restrictions on the use of vending machines and a ban on the display of tobacco products in shops. A ban is also proposed on children's sweets that look like cigarettes.
Legislation is already in place for the measures, some of which are facing legal challenge by the tobacco industry.
It is expected that most of the measures will be in place by the end of 2006.
Dr Michael Boland, chairman of the Office of Tobacco Control (OTC), welcomed the Minister's announcement and said the OTC had decided to make it a priority to discourage 15- to 18-year-olds from smoking.
"The statistics are very bleak for those who start at this age," he said. "The majority will not be able to stop. A change in relation to pack size is a possible way to discourage young people starting."
Tobacco is the leading cause of premature death in Ireland, killing 6,000 people a year. Over a lifetime, smokers have a 50 per cent chance of dying from tobacco-related illness and over half will die in middle age, losing an average of 22 years of life. By 2020, Dr Boland said, lung cancer would be a mostly female disease.
The OTC report included details of the 2005 national inspection programme on the workplace smoking ban. Of the 35,000 premises inspected last year, 95 per cent were compliant with the ban on smoking in the workplace. Pubs had the lowest compliance rate, at 87 per cent.
Some 38 prosecutions were taken for breaches of the smoking ban, 32 of these related to pubs, four related to taxi companies, one was against a shop and one was against an individual.
The smoke-free compliance line took 1,353 calls during 2005, the report said, 80 per cent of which were complaints.
A survey on public attitudes to smoking, carried out by TNS mrbi and included in the report, found that 98 per cent of people feel that workplaces are healthier since the introduction of the smoking ban in March 2004.
