“It is essential that we denormalise smoking,” Dr Reilly said.
Irish Health Minister James Reilly says he will ban outdoor smoking in parks and on beaches to stop children seeing adults smoking. He also intends to ban smoking in cars with children present.
“We are getting more support for my plans to ban smoking in cars, but I would like to go further. I would like to do what they’ve done in New York, where smoking is banned in parks and on beaches, where children are likely to be and observe behaviour, because that is where they are and they learn what ‘big’ people do. So, I certainly intend to pursue that at Cabinet.”
If society was determined to tackle issues such as smoking and obesity, “we need to take the critics head on and take the action that is required”.
Those determined to improve the nation’s health must reject the accusations of those, many with vested interests, that the State was behaving as a “nanny state,” Dr Reilly said. “The State has a duty of care to its citizens.”
He made his plans public at the irish Heart Foundation conference on Friday, according to the Irish Examiner.
He stated he wanted to follow the lead of New York which bans smoking in city-owned public spaces. He will bring his plan to the cabinet shortly.
Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg last year signed into law a Bill prohibiting smoking within the city’s parks, beaches and on pedestrian plazas. When it came into force, smoking was banned in these places, as well as on boardwalks, public golf courses and sportsgrounds.
"We don’t want children to see adults smoking in public areas. Areas where we would expect lots of children to be present, as in our public parks and on our beaches, should be smoke-free zones, and I will be putting a memo to Government to that effect."
Smoking had already been banned in playgrounds and at public swimming pools.
He said 29 per cent of Irish adults still smoked a figure that was far too high. In New York he said that had been cut to 22 per cent.
According to the New York City parks department, enforcement of the ban is “mostly by New Yorkers themselves”.
In its policy statement, it says: “We expect that New Yorkers will ask people to follow the law and stop smoking . . . However, people who violate the new law could receive a $50 ticket [fine].”
Studies cited by the New York parks department suggest sitting three feet away from a smoker outdoors could expose a person to the same level of second-hand smoke as if they were sitting indoors with someone smoking.
"This is a duty of care we have to our citizens and that duty is all the greater to citizens who don’t have a voice — our children."
A spokesman for anti-smoking group Ash Ireland, Dr Brian Maurer, said they would welcome the Minister’s moves and that they were overdue.
Dr Reilly, extending his talk to refer to measures to tackle obesity, said the State had a duty to make citizens aware of preventable risks.
“We’re not going to take choices away from people. We want them to make informed choices, so that when they do go into a restaurant they know the calorie content of each individual dish . . . and they are influenced by that, there is no question.”
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