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Investigatessmoke screenTHE ILLEGAL SALE of disposable vapes is commonplace in shops across Dublin, a new undercover investigation can reveal.
The Journal Investigates went undercover late last year to find these vapes being sold in plain sight, visiting 16 locations across the capital. These ranged from bespoke vape shops to mobile phone repair stores, corner shops and a Moore Street market stall.
At 13 of these randomly selected locations, over 80%, we were able to purchase vapes that failed to meet an aspect of EU regulations or breached rules, highlighting how easy it is to buy these vapes.
Shops like the ones our team visited exist in almost every part of the country.
The scale of our findings suggests that many people are unknowingly buying and using vapes that are unsafe, contain substances that are out of date or lack proper safety notices from people with little regard for the rules.
In this largely unregulated industry, numerous retailers are flouting the few rules that exist, brazenly displaying products that shouldn’t be on sale in shop windows. This clearly demonstrates a lack of enforcement by authorities.
Our undercover team was able to purchase expired products at three locations, packaging that did not include the correct health warnings at 12 locations and, of perhaps greater concern, products containing more than the legal limit of e-liquid at two locations.
Professor Donal O’Shea, head of the Department of Chemistry at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), told The Journal Investigates that people using vaping products are already “taking an unknown and large amount of risk” due to the lack of research into vaping and by using products that breach regulations you just “heap another pile [of risk] on top of it”.
He also added that the variation of vaping products is “enormous”, with each vape using different chemicals to provide flavouring, and that this makes it difficult for researchers and regulators to accurately predict the impact vapes may have on our health.
Three stores also sold us a vape that didn’t include a health and safety information leaflet, as is required under the regulations.
Responding to our findings, MEP Barry Andrews said “it’s a wild west situation in Dublin at the moment, as far as vaping products are concerned”, adding that “there should be much greater inspection and surveillance” of shops that sell vapes.
Under the European Tobacco Products Directive, vaping products must adhere to a set of regulations before entering the Irish market.
That includes clear health warnings on packaging in both Irish and English, and a limit on nicotine strength of no more than 20mg/ml.
Disposable vapes also cannot have more than 2ml of nicotine-containing e-liquid.
Vapes should only be sold in child-resistant packaging, with further restrictions on advertisement and promotion of vaping and other e-liquid products.
Manufacturers, importers and retailers found flouting the rules face prosecution and hefty fines.
Despite this, The Journal Investigates easily found numerous products for sale in Dublin that fell short of the regulations.
Two of the vapes our team purchased from two different shops while undercover greatly exceeded the legal limit of e-liquid allowed in a disposable vape.
One of these vapes, a ‘RandM Tornado 9000 Pro’ comes with 18ml of e-liquid, nine times the legal volume of liquid allowed under the regulations.
Products with the same licence numbers as our vape were alerted in the EU Safety Gate, the EU rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products, and retailers were told to withdraw them from sale in early 2024.
The system is used by the HSE National Environmental Health Service (NEHS) to alert consumers and other EU member states of products found to pose a serious risk to health.
These products were labelled as either different strengths or flavours, but all had the same issue: an excessive amount of nicotine-containing liquid (18ml) which the product we bought also had.
The warnings also state that the excessive volume of liquid could lead to “the accidental consumption of a high dose of nicotine” and that the product does not comply with EU regulations.
The box our vape came in also suggests it should not have been sold in Ireland.
It features the writing “sale only allowed in the United States” on the back, as well as information relating to California Proposition 65, a state law requiring warnings for products containing listed chemicals sold in California.
There is also no expiry date listed on the box, meaning it is difficult to know how old the product is.
The Journal Investigates contacted the only company listed on the box of the ‘RandM Tornado 9000 Pro’ – China-based ShenZhen Fumot Technology – about its sale in Irish shops and how it ended up on the shelves.
This company develops and manufactures vapes, but it is unclear from the packaging who supplied the product to Ireland. Despite numerous attempts, the company did not respond.
In 2022, the Federal & Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States issued a warning letter to ShenZhen Fumot Technology for unauthorised marketing of vape products, with packaging featuring cartoon characters.
The vape we purchased is also not listed on the FDA’s list of authorised e-cigarettes, raising questions as to its legality in the United States also.
Our undercover footage also shows this vape, alongside three other variations, prominently displayed in the shop window. Another vape containing more than the legal limit of e-liquid, the Hayati Pro Max, is also visible.
We attempted to contact the store owner about this but did not receive a reply.
Our team was also able to purchase the Hayati Pro Max from a different store, highlighting the prevalence of these products.
This vape contains 10ml of e-liquid, five times over the legal limit for a disposable vape.
When our team attempted to contact the owner of the shop where we bought this vape, they refused to answer questions and repeatedly hung up on us.
Our team contacted Hayati’s Chinese manufacturer, PAX International Limited about the product being sold in Ireland and how it ended up here.
However, the company did not respond by the time of publication. It is unclear what company was responsible for supplying the product into the Irish market.
A spokesperson for the HSE told The Journal Investigates “the NEHS undertakes a targeted inspection and sampling programme, with a particular focus on checking for nicotine content and volume of liquid in electronic cigarettes”.
All of the vapes we bought claimed to adhere to the concentration of nicotine of 20mg/ml or 2%, but we were unable to independently verify these claims as it would require laboratory testing.
The HSE also told us they would investigate the stores that illegally sold us these vapes, as well as all other breaches our team found from the vapes we purchased.
The vast majority of the vapes our team purchased did not have the correct health warning on the box.
The regulations state that this warning should be written in both Irish and English, however, 15 of the 21 vapes we purchased only have the warning in English.
Our undercover footage also shows countless products available for sale that lack the Irish and English health warnings, demonstrating how widespread these non-compliant vapes have become.
A spokesperson for the distributor of IVG vapes in Ireland, like those seen above, told The Journal Investigates “we are aware of this issue and have been campaigning against it for years with the HSE”.
They added that a “considerable amount” of vapes from the UK are being imported into Ireland “mainly through wholesalers” in England and that the issue is impacting “all major brands”.
We asked the HSE about this issue but we did not receive a response in time for publication.
While it is not illegal to import these vapes from the UK, they cannot be sold in Ireland unless they are repackaged to comply with Irish regulations. This includes the warning label on the box being in both Irish and English.
A spokesperson for the HSE told The Journal Investigates that “it is the responsibility of manufacturers and importers… to ensure that they fully comply with all legislative requirements”.
They added that retailers also have a responsibility to ensure the vapes they sell “comply with the law”.
Among the vapes we purchased were six products from Lost Mary and one from Elfbar, two of the most popular brands in Ireland and both owned by China-based Shenzhen iMiracle Technology.
Just one of these products had the correct warning label, though it was a sticker placed on the box, covering what was originally an English-only warning.
A spokesperson for Shenzhen iMiracle Technology representing both vaping brands told The Journal Investigates that the products we purchased were “not authorised” for the Republic of Ireland market.
“Authorised products feature an Irish flag, Irish distributor details and clear safety warnings printed on the front of the product packaging in Irish and English,” they said.
Our team found instances of these imported vapes being sold in mobile phone repair stores and bespoke vape shops across Dublin.
Five vapes our team bought were also many months past their expiry date listed on the box. One of these vapes was purchased from a bespoke vape shop chain, with multiple locations across the capital and east of the country.
Once a product reaches its expiry date, the e-liquid inside starts to break down and may lose its potency and taste. Due to a lack of studies, it’s unclear what the health impact of vaping expired products is.
However, Professor Donal O’Shea told us that using these expired products is “just adding more risk, more unknown to another already very, very risky situation”, saying that it’s another example of how unregulated the industry is.
Among the expired products sold to our team was an Elfbar and Lost Mary. Both products were several months past their expiry date when they were sold to us.
A spokesperson for Shenzhen iMiracle Technology, which owns both vaping brands, told The Journal Investigates that retailers should “monitor stock closely to ensure that all products remain within their shelf life”.
One of the stores that sold us an expired vape told us they “don’t sell expired items in our store”.
Another store did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Our team also found vape products for sale at a Moore Street market stall.
After purchasing three vapes from the stall, our team discovered that they had all expired in 2023. One of the vapes had an expiry date in March 2023, meaning it was 21 months out of date when our team purchased it.
There is currently no license required to sell vapes, though this will change next year.
From February 2026, retailers will have to pay an annual fee of €800 to sell electronic cigarettes and €1,000 to sell tobacco as part of a new licensing system.
Since 2009, retailers selling tobacco in one or more stores must register with the Office of Tobacco Control and pay a one-off €50 application fee. Under the new licensing system, however, each premises will have to apply for an annual licence from the NEHS.
Shops that sell vapes will also have to join this new register and will be subject to inspections by the HSE to ensure compliance with the law. Licences will also not be provided to temporary or mobile premises, such as pop-up shops at festivals.
They will have to renew their licence annually meaning that any retailer who illegally sells vapes or sells to under-18s can have their licence revoked.
The new requirements were passed via a Statutory Instrument in Dáil Éireann last year, and will fall under The Public Health (Tobacco Products and Nicotine Inhaling Products) Act 2023, which banned the sale of products to under-18s.
Our team also found that some vapes were missing the safety leaflet in the box, which is required under EU regulations.
This leaflet should include instructions for storage and use, warnings for specific risk groups, as well as addictiveness and toxicity warnings. It should also include the contact details of the producer.
Two of these vapes were purchased from the market stall, but our team also bought vapes without a safety leaflet in brick-and-mortar stores.
One product was the ‘RandM Tornado 9000 Pro’ discussed above. The other was a ‘DejaVoo Fresh Cube’ disposable vape.
When contacted about this sale, the store owner told us the product had been removed from sale soon after we had purchased it.
Our team went back to this store a few weeks after this. The product was no longer on display but when we asked for it, it was sold to us from under the counter.
“We threw it in the bin,” the store assistant told our undercover team when we asked why the same DejaVoo vape, again without a product leaflet, was sold to us despite being told it was no longer available.
Why had we been sold a product from the bin? The store assistant said “because you asked”. They then took our purchased vape from us and threw it, along with the other products kept under the counter into a plastic bag in the corner of the shop.
This store also had multiple variations of the RandM Tornado 9000 Pro and Hayati Pro Max on display for sale. These vapes, featured above, have multiple times the legal limit of e-liquid.
The store owner apologised to our team when we contacted him about this, saying the product was not supposed to be sold and that he had told his staff to throw it in the bin when we initially contacted him.
He also told us that the RandM and Hayati vapes would also be removed from sale and thrown in the bin.
UK-based Bliz Electronics Limited, listed as the importer of the ‘DejaVoo’ vape on its packaging, did not respond to multiple requests for comment from our team.
Given this vape was also missing the Irish safety warning, it could have been imported from China to the UK market, so it is unclear what company supplied these vapes to the Irish market.
MEP Barry Andrews said that the prevalence of vapes that breach regulations highlights “the lack of actual enforcement” in retail outlets by the HSE and “the lack of inspection and surveillance that should be there”.
He added that the resources of the HSE environmental health inspectors should be increased in order to undertake more retail inspections.
According to the HSE’s National Plan 2024, a target of 40 planned inspections of vape manufacturers and distributors was set last year.
We asked the HSE whether this target was met last year, but we did not receive a response before publication.
As part of the draft Programme for Government, the new government has committed to introducing “wide ranging restrictions on vaping”, including packaging, flavours and a ban on disposable vapes.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health also said that the EU rules around vaping are “currently under review at EU level”.
The HSE told us that members of the public can alert them to the sale of vapes that breach the regulations by contacting their local Environmental Health office.
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Reporters: Conor O’Carroll & Patricia Devlin • Editor & Additional Research: Maria Delaney • Social Media: Sadbh Cox • Video: Nicky Ryan • Main Image Design: Lorcan O’Reilly
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