Irish Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly will seek Cabinet approval this week for the legislation to increase the legal age by three years.
The bill will be designed so that it does not affect those who are between the ages of 18 and 21 and who are currently legally entitled to be sold tobacco products.
The prohibition on the retail sale of tobacco products will not apply to this cohort for a “wash through” period.
A ban on the sale of tobacco and vape products from vending machines is also set to be enacted.
Further legislation is planned to ban disposable vapes, address issues around flavours of vapes and the bright colours of vape packaging.
Proposed legislation to increase the legal age for buying cigarettes and other tobacco products from 18 to 21 is “significant”, Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said.Mr Martin said that while there has been progress in reducing the number of young people smoking over the past 20 years, this was an opportunity “to press home the possibilities of really eliminating smoking among younger generations into the future”.
“The research is showing that raising the age to 21 matters in that respect,” he added.
Mr Martin said that he believed there was public support for the legislation.
Speaking in Cork, the Tánaiste said there was to be more work on tacking the use of vapes.
“We have to act. It seems to me the same playbook is at play that the tobacco industry did in the 1950s, 1960s, getting young people addicted to cigarettes and created generations of disease.
“Potentially the same play book here with young people being incentivised by flavourings, positioning and presentation of the product and potentially long term hard, we have to intervene at this stage.”
He said: “Really it’s a measure aimed at people who are 15, 16, 17 years of age that with a smoking age at 18, they find it relatively easy to buy cigarettes…but that if you move to 21 it makes it much more difficult.”
According to the ‘Tobacco 21’ report by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland Policy Group (RCPI), experimentation with smoking is highest among teenagers between the ages of 15 and 17.
It said raising the minimum legal age for the sale of tobacco products in Ireland would reduce the number of teenagers and young adults who become addicted to tobacco and could cut smoking rates by 25% among young teenagers.
Around 4,500 people die in Ireland each year from the effects of smoking, making it the single biggest contributor to early death, the RCPI said.
Thousands more suffer from smoking-related diseases, including heart and lung disease, and cancers, it added.
