Clear The Air News Tobacco Blog Rotating Header Image

Ireland passes tobacco plain packaging law

http://www.smh.com.au/action/printArticle?id=66733572

Dublin: Ireland has become the second country in the world to pass a law introducing mandatory plain packaging for tobacco products, prompting the tobacco industry to threaten legal action.

It follows Australia’s introduction of similar plain packaging legislation in 2012.

Under Ireland’s new rules all forms of branding, including logos and colours will be banned and all products will have have a uniform packaging with graphic health warnings.

“We are creating legislation which will be historic and will be of real importance to the area of public health,” the Minister for Children James Reilly told parliament.

“We are on the verge of being the first country in the EU to pass a law on plain packaging. We are on the verge of being only the second country in the world to pass a plain packaging law,” he said before the bill passed.

The legislation had cross-party support and passed without a vote.

It will be sent to the president to pass into law after a technical vote in the upper house next week, although full implementation of the rules will not be effective until May 2017, when all existing packaging must be removed from sale.

Other EU countries, such as Britain, have indicated they will introduce similar rules.

The move has been met with fierce opposition by tobacco companies who have threatened Dublin with legal action.

“We in this house will not be intimidated by such action. We will pass such laws as we believe to be correct,” Mr Reilly said.

Earlier this month JTI Ireland, owner of the Benson & Hedges and Silk Cut brands, said they would take legal action if the legislation is enacted.

“We have made our views known to the government many times so they should come as no surprise,” a spokesperson for JTI Ireland said after the vote. “If this proceeds we will go to court to protect our rights.”

AFP

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>