Tobacco will kill 19 people in Ireland today. It will kill 7,000 people this year, more than the population of Castlebar.
It will kill slowly, costing the health service as much as £1.6 billion per annum. It will kill more people in 2001 than TB in any year through the 1940s and the 1950s.
Yet, while the scourge of TB cast an indelible stain on our folk memory, tobacco addiction - which this year will kill more than the Civil War, the Troubles or 1916 - will barely register. Rather like our road deaths, we will go on slaughtering ourselves like lemmings. More about road carnage on another occasion.
Tobacco is an addiction, and one can only have sympathy for those who cannot "kick" the habit.
What is most galling, however, is that this needless death and agony profits tobacco companies to the tune of millions.
The 31 per cent of the Irish population addicted to cigarettes will form tomorrow's death toll unless urgent action is taken. Based on present calculations, each of those 31 per cent will lose about 15 years of their lives to tobacco.
Put in an international context, the situation appears even more bleak. The World Health Organisation estimates that 500 million people who are alive today will be killed by tobacco.
Globally, four million will die from tobacco-related illnesses this year, and, if present trends are not reversed, this will rise to 10 million by 2030.
The tobacco companies, which profit from this addiction, should be taken to court to recoup the cost of treating those of us harmed by smoking.
Where a company has knowingly sold a product that kills, it should be made responsible for this terrible action. Such a process would bring the truth about tobacco addiction in Ireland into the open in a court of law. Such an action may also discourage young people from smoking.
Should the State win, all damages should be reinvested in the health services and used on aggressive anti-smoking campaigns. Such actions have proved successful in the United States. We need to check if the legal scenario is similar here.
I understand that the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Martin, has already been in contact with the Attorney General, Mr Michael McDowell, about adopting such a course, and that Mr McDowell has referred this issue to an independent senior counsel.
Their decision should be delivered by early autumn, at which stage the Minister and the AG can make a decision on whether to proceed.
Such a course, which has been advised by the anti-tobacco group ASH, was also backed during the week by the Oireachtas sub-committee on Health and Smoking in their interim report, which should be mandatory reading for anyone with a tobacco addiction.
Some of the most startling facts in the report relate to passive smoking. The committee learned that passive smoking, or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), is the most harmful indoor pollutant in Ireland, more harmful than asbestos.
In the light of this health hazard, they recommend smoking be banned in all public houses to protect the health of staff and other customers. This should be done as soon as possible. Let's not wait for a claim by a public-house staff-member with lung cancer from passive smoking to force the issue.
Another recommendation is that the Minister for Finance consider the creation of a second Consumer Price Index exclusive for all tobacco products.
While the first CPI could continue to measure the rate of change in prices for EU comparison purposes, the second would allow us to levy extra taxes on tobacco without inflationary implications. Once such a measure was in place, they recommend a year-on-year tax of 50p per annum on tobacco, the proceeds to go on a national (youth) anti-smoking strategy and a national (adult) smoking strategy.
This sort of anti-tobacco measure, working with those already passed, or passing through the Dail, could make a difference in the fight against tobacco.
Mr Martin's anti-tobacco measures - banning 10-packs and tobacco advertising, raising prices, increasing fines on those who sell tobacco to minors - represent the first serious challenge to tobacco addiction taken by any minister for health in the history of this State. It was long overdue.
Anyone who has lit a cigarette in the presence of Mr Martin will tell you about the strength of his feelings on the issue. His aim is for a tobacco-free society.
Across the board, all will readily admit that nobody has done as much on the issue as he has. This week's Joint Oireachtas Committee backing for his tough approach is as welcome as it is necessary.
One area where I feel the committee was not strong enough was on illegal tobacco sales of contraband cigarettes. While they recommend a review and strengthening of penalties in this area, additional resources should be allocated to the Garda and Customs to combat this trade, which will surely grow as the price of cigarettes increases.
Of course, the tobacco firms, being mainly transnational in nature, will not be hurt globally by the sale of contraband cigarettes here, or elsewhere.
These companies seem oblivious to our concerns and to the human cost of their product. Like the majority of people, I found abhorrent the reports concerning the claims by Philip Morris that smoking could save an economy millions in healthcare costs due to the early deaths of smokers. In Ireland the company sells the Benson & Hedges and Marlboro brands.
Equally objectionable as the Philip Morris report was Mr Alan Shatter's claim that the Government had adopted Philip Morris's policies on smoking. I know Mr Shatter to be an intelligent and honourable man and cannot understand this lapse into absurdity.
Let us adopt the Joint Oireachtas Committee approach and work together on this deadly issue. It is well beyond political point-scoring at this stage.
dandrews@irish-times.ie
Garret FitzGerald is on leave