The Minister for Health and Children yesterday announced an onslaught on tobacco consumption and warned the industry that there was no point in trying to get him to soften his approach.
Mr Martin was speaking at the launch of the report, "Towards a Tobacco Free Society", which was produced by the Tobacco Free Policy Review Group.
The report accuses the tobacco industry of targeting children and of denying that its products cause cancer.
Mr Martin promised that the Health Amendment Bill, to be published in a fortnight, will raise from 16 to 18 years the minimum age at which a person can buy tobacco.
It will also impose a maximum fine of £1,500 on shops which sell tobacco to under-age customers.
He has also promised a Tobacco Bill in the autumn which will go further. It will force tobacco companies to disclose full information about the additives they put in tobacco. It will also restrict the promotion of tobacco in shops.
If the Minister follows the recommendations of the review group, it will, at a minimum, oblige shopkeepers to locate cigarettes at a distance from sweets and groceries and it may involve a stipulation that tobacco products must be kept out of sight of customers at all times.
The Oireachtas Committee on Health will this week be given the power to compel tobacco companies to disclose documents for its forthcoming investigation of the industry, the Minister said. It was his belief that the cost to the State of treating people for tobacco-related illnesses was far greater than its income from excise duty on cigarettes and other tobacco products.
A decision on whether to sue tobacco companies for the costs incurred by the health services in treating people suffering from tobacco-related illnesses had still to be made, he said.
Mr Martin said his Department would study documentation which will be obtained from the tobacco industry before making a decision.
Restrictions on smoking in public houses will be discussed with publicans' representatives, he said.
The Vintners' Federation had indicated informally that it would be interested in talking to him along these lines, he said.
The Minister also announced that from July he will ban all sponsorship of Irish sports events by tobacco companies and will ban advertising of tobacco products in newspapers despite pleas by the media to allow them to carry such advertising until next year.
As part of a strategy to prevent children from smoking, he will ban the sale of cigarettes in packets containing fewer than 20. This ban is likely to come into effect during the autumn.
The number of people smoking fell from 45 per cent of the population in 1973 to 28 per cent in 1994, he said, but had risen again to 31 per cent in 1999.
According to the report, smoking begins in childhood and peaks between the ages of 18 and 35. Despite price and tax increases, the real cost of cigarettes remained static in the 1990s until the 1999 Budget imposed substantial tax increases.
The report notes that life expectancy in Ireland is lower than the EU average, that the diseases which contribute to that statistic are heart disease and cancer and that tobacco is the leading preventable cause of these diseases.
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