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The anti-smoking lobby group Ash Ireland has expressed disappointment at the failure of its plan to ban smoking in cars transporting children to garner Government support.
Ash has sought the ban because there is an “abundance of evidence” to show that the levels of passive smoke in a car can be very high and as have higher respiratory rates and metabolism than adults they face higher risks. The group has requested that smoking be banned in cars carrying children aged under 16.
Dr Angie Brown, Ash Ireland chairperson, called on the “Government and especially our Minister for Health & Children to consider this issue again in early 2009".
The body is also disappointed that there has been so little progress on removing tobacco from the consumer price index. Until this happens the Government is likely to be reluctant to place significant increases on the price of tobacco as it will boost the inflation rate.
According to Ash price is the most effective way of encouraging adults to stop smoking and discouraging young people from starting.
“It is clear that unless we remove tobacco from the CPI we will not have an effective and consistent 'price increase' policy because of inflation fears,” Dr Brown said in a statement today.
She added that “close to 7,000 people die from tobacco use in this country each year” with billions of euro spent on treating tobacco related illness in the health services.
