Bill proposes banning tobacco firms from lobbying Ireland’s politicians

Three Irish senators are due to bring forward a bill banning tobacco companies from lobbying politicians, according to an Irish Mirror Online story.

Jillian Van Turnhout, John Crown and Sean Barrett are those pushing the new law.

Senator Crown described the tobacco industry as a “pernicious and evil trade”. “Fewer than half of those who ever take up smoking will quit, more than half of those who want to quit will never manage to,” he said.

The three senators are due also to push forward next week with plans to ban tobacco smoking in cars carrying young people.

Meanwhile, the tobacco advisor to the Department of Health, Fenton Howell, has claimed that Ireland will be a cigarette-free country by 2025.

According to the Mirror story, he said many believed the smoking ban was a pipe dream, but it was ‘now a reality’.