A SMOKING BAN that permanently prohibits young people from buying cigarettes is being considered by the cabinet.

The ban is part of the government’s Tobacco Free Ireland Strategy, which aims to reduce the country’s smoking rate to under 5%.

The latest Healthy Ireland survey revealed that 17% of the population are smokers, with the highest rates among the 25-34 age group.

The ban is part of wider measures “to end the epidemic of tobacco-related harm in Ireland”, minister for health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said during parliamentary questions this week.

Legislation raising the legal age for the sale of tobacco products to 21 has already been approved but will not take effect until February 2028.

Ireland would be the first EU country to go a step further and impose a generational ban on tobacco.

How does it work?

The UK passed a generational ban on cigarettes this year, but it will not be implemented until next January.

The aim is to create a smoke-free generation by gradually phasing out the sale of cigarettes to those born after a specific date.

In the UK that makes it illegal to sell tobacco products to those born on or after 1 January 2009.

It does not ban smoking completely or affect those who currently smoke.

Instead, it targets a specific age demographic that, as they get older, can never legally be sold tobacco.

Mark Murphy, director of advocacy with the Irish Heart Foundation, believed that Ireland needs to follow the UK’s lead in the implementation of the ban.

This is both for regulatory alignment (as Ireland shares a border with the UK) but also to tackle wider public health concerns on tobacco related diseases.

Asked whether the new legislation will be effective, Murphy stated that with the right enforcement, a generational smoking ban will work.

“Like with all the previous policies, the workplace smoking ban or plain packaging on cigarettes, the Irish public appreciates these kinds of regulations. So I think we’d be very confident that they’re working, and we’ll see in the long term the benefit it will have,” he told The Journal.

“What’s really lucky is that the majority of the public actually wants this ban.

“It’s a retail ban, so the responsibility will be on the retailers, not on the young people themselves,” he added. 

What other countries have smoking bans?

New Zealand was the first country to propose a generational smoking ban in 2022.

However, it was later repealed by a new coalition government due to concerns about an unregulated black market and the need to preserve excise duties on tobacco.

The Maldives is the only country to have fully implemented a generational smoking ban, which took effect in November 2025.

It is illegal for both residents and tourists to buy, process or use tobacco products.

Selling cigarettes to an underage person carries a penalty of up to 50,000 Maldivian rufiyaa or nearly €3,000 in fines, according to tobacco control laws.

Alongside the cigarette ban, the Maldivian government has also placed a nationwide ban on vaping and e-cigarettes.

Statistics are yet to be released on whether these new laws are reducing smoking rates.

Similarly, the effect of the generational ban in the UK cannot be estimated until after its roll-out next year.

38% of Ireland’s cigarettes are obtained illegally

Vincent Jennings, chief executive of the Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association (CSNA), believes that retailers need to be consulted in the case of a ban, but this is yet to happen.

“I have no doubt whatsoever that there will be instances where there are arguments and maybe worse at counters when you attempt to initiate something that is so different and so unique. So you’d need a very, very clear policy of how that’s to be dealt with,” he told The Journal.

He also highlighted concerns that a generational ban could lead to a boom in black-market sales.

This was the case in Australia following a strict crackdown on tobacco with high excise duties on products.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) found that the illicit tobacco market accounted for 80% of all nicotine consumption.

“We’ve got reciprocal links with the Australian Newsagents Association, and we see what’s happening where the level of illegality and the level of smuggling are off the charts. There are turf wars, and there are people being intimidated daily to sell illegal products,” Jennings said.

Illicit and non-duty-paid tobacco makes up 38% of all cigarettes in circulation in Ireland, as shown in Revenue’s 2025 Illegal Tobacco Products Research Survey.

Jennings said that any legislation needs to consider both the influence of smoking bans on illicit sales and alternative sources of nicotine replacement, such as pouches.

4,000 Irish deaths each year

“Every year in Ireland, at least 4,500 people die from diseases caused by tobacco use,” Niccki Gallagher, chief executive of the Irish Cancer Society, told The Journal.

A smoking ban is “critical to protect younger generations from the health harms of tobacco, while denormalising smoking across the population”, Gallagher believes.

Murphy agreed that the generational ban would have a “transformative” impact on public health but also reduce the burden on the healthcare system in an ageing society.

“We need to eliminate, and we need to look at prevention. And this is one of the biggest ways we can get a huge public win in prevention,” Murphy asserted.