THE TAOISEACH HAS praised plans by New Zealand to effectively ban smoking in future generations. 

The country has announced measures to progressively increase the age at which tobacco products can be bought, which will mean today’s young teens will never be able to buy cigarettes legally.

New Zealand currently outlaws tobacco sales to under-18s and from 2027, the age ban would increase by one year annually to keep the cohort smoke free.

It would maintain New Zealand’s role as a global trailblazer in restricting tobacco, as when it banned cigarette sponsorship of sports in 1990 and forbid smoking from bars in 2004, the same year Ireland banned it in workplaces including bars. 

The latest move has been welcomed Micheál Martin, who described it this afternoon as a “very interesting and clever idea” to journalists. 

Martin, who was Minister for Health when Ireland’s introduced its smoking ban, said it was important to “prevent young people from ever taking up a cigarette” and that “no barriers” should be put in the way of achieving that goal. 

He added: “What the tobacco industry did historically was it hooked young people, it got them addicted and it’s an addiction that is very hard to shake and it destroyed many many lives.”

Martin recalled discussions with New Zealand politicians at the time of Ireland’s smoking ban, who felt “that if we can get rid of smoking in Irish pubs, we can get rid of it anywhere in the world”.

With reporting by Rónán Duffy