Donnelly calls for smoking age to be raised to 21

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has proposed raising the legal smoking age from 18 to 21.

As Ireland marks 20 years since the ban on smoking in indoor public areas was introduced, Donnelly has proposed going one step further in a bid to reduce the influence smoking has on Irish society.

Donnelly told RTÉ he was planning to make his recommendations to Cabinet at the next meeting.

“It’s a measure aimed at people who are 15, 16, 17 years of age that with a smoking age at 18, they find it relatively easy to buy cigarettes, but that if you move to 21 it makes it much more difficult.”

He believed that should Government take his plans on board, the plans could be in place by the end of the year.

Campaigners have called for the smoking ban to be extended to outdoor public spaces, which Donnelly admitted is part of the recent public consultation surrounding tobacco legislation.

Marking 20 years since the smoking ban, Tánaiste Micheál Martin, who served as Minister for Health when the ban was introduced, said the aim of the policy was to stop young people from picking up the habit of smoking.

“At the time, we were very conscious of denormalising smoking. When I grew up, smoking was habitual. The tobacco industry worked on the premise of getting young people addicted from a very young age,” he told RTÉ.

Martin and Donnelly’s Fianna Fáil colleague, MEP Barry Andrews, has called on Government to ban vaping in what he sees as the next battleground in the battle to protect public health.

“Walk down any street in cities and towns across Ireland and you quickly come across plastic vapes discarded on paths, roadsides, in parks, under trees and lamp posts, in canals and on beaches.  It also remains the case that those under 25 account for the highest usage of vapes,” he said.

Ireland became the first country in the world to ban smoking in indoor public spaces in 2004 and researchers say the ban saves as many as 1500 lives a year.

“We can lead the way on this issue too,” Andrews said.

Across the Irish Sea, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is planning to introduce legislation that would prevent people who are 14 years old now from ever being able to purchase a pack of cigarettes.

Under the plan, the legal age at which someone can buy a pack of cigarettes would increase every year, but the bill is facing potential backlash from the libertarian wing of the Conservative Party.