Some 40 per cent of shops are still willing to sell cigarettes to children while most licensed premises fail to stop minors buying tobacco from vending machines, a survey by the Office of Tobacco Control (OTC) has found.
The National Tobacco Retail Audit - 2008 Monitoring Report, published today, examined how compliant tobacco retailers were with the legislation on selling cigarettes to minors.
It concluded that underage youths stood a “high chance” of being sold cigarettes in shops and licensed premises despite the legal ban on selling to minors.
The report also found nearly 90 per cent of stores visited contained some form of tobacco advertising and 40 per cent of shops had confectionery displayed beside the tobacco display.
Advertising and display of tobacco products in retail outlets will be banned from July next under provisions contained in the Public Health (Tobacco) Acts 2002 and 2004 which are due to come into force this summer.
The ban includes all in-store/point-of-sale advertising of tobacco products and a ban on the display of tobacco products in retail premises.
Speaking at the launch of the report in the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin, Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Mary Wallace said: "The findings of this report confirm the extensive presence of tobacco advertising and tobacco product display within the retail sector in Ireland.”
Ms Wallace said: “As the retail environment is an integral part of young people's lives, they are exposed routinely to tobacco advertising messages.
OTC chairman Norma Cronin said: "The significance of the measures being introduced in July, in terms of protecting young people, should not be underestimated. Research clearly shows that children are aware of and are influenced by tobacco advertising in the retail setting.”
Ms Cronin said: “In Ireland for example, 80 per cent of child smokers smoke just two brands, the brands which happen to be the two most heavily marketed through the use of in-store displays."
The report found that 40 per cent of shops were willing to sell cigarettes to minors and 63 per cent of licensed premises failed to prevent youths using vending machines to purchase tobacco.
But this represents an improvement on the compliance levels detected in 2007, when a similar survey found 48 per cent of shops were willing to sell to underage youths and 64 per cent licensed premises failed to prevent illegal sales to minors.
The 2008 report found 54 per cent of shops asked the children for proof of their age in 2008 compared to 47 per cent in 2007. The figure for licensed premises remained almost unchanged in 2008 with 31 per cent requesting ID.
Some 96 per cent of minors, who were asked for ID, were refused the sale.
The survey also found 79 per cent of premises with token operated cigarette vending machines prevented children from buying cigarettes against 24 per cent of premises with coin operated machines.
The Irish Cancer Society said today it was seriously concerned that retailers across the country are still selling cigarettes to minors.
John McCormack, CEO of the society, said tobacco products should not be viewed by people as benign consumer products in retail outlets.
"They rightfully need to be taken out of sight of consumers to de-normalise them in an effort to decrease the uptake of smoking, especially by young people and decrease smoking prevalence generally," he said.
"Regretfully 29 per cent of our population smoke so we have major battle in hand to reduce these rates. Smoking is largely a childhood and teenage phenomenon with 78 per cent of smokers starting to smoke before the age of 18, and 53 per cent beginning before the age of 15 so the battle is even greater in these age groups.”