Clampdown on vape retailers as Cork shops twice as likely as others to sell to children

Cork vape retailers were twice as likely as other Irish retailers to sell nicotine products to children last year, but far less likely to be prosecuted for it.

The National Environmental Health Service (NEHS), a HSE department responsible for enforcing legislation around nicotine, has now begun a clampdown on Cork retailers selling the products, with considerably more inspections carried out in the first three months of this year than the entirety of 2025.

It comes as the Government is reportedly advancing plans to introduce a “generational smoking ban” that would completely restrict youths from being able to buy cigarettes, and amid requests for funding for the creation of a “stop vaping service” in the HSE.

A motion on the topic of vape regulation at Monday’s meeting of Cork City Council came from Independent Ireland councillor Noel O’Flynn.

He called on the Department of Health, HSE, and gardaí to work together to increase inspections and prosecutions of vaping retailers who do not comply with the law, saying: “I am aware of children as young as 12 using vapes.”

Data provided to The Echo by the HSE showed that 11 of the 29 Cork retailers that were tested in 2025 to see if they would sell nicotine to a child did so, a rate of 38%.

This was double the 19% rate for the rest of Ireland. There have been 48 prosecutions for selling nicotine to children across Ireland, 44 last year and four this year, but none of these have been in Cork, despite the county’s high rate of non-compliance in this area.

A government bill banning single use vapes passed through both houses of the Oireachtas last week, and it will now go to the President for her consideration.

Retailers will have six months from the commencement of the law to clear their non-compliant stock.

The HSE also provided data on inspections over the last 18 months, where the National Environmental Health Service inspects if products exceeding the legal limits for nicotine content or liquid volume are being sold, or if mandatory information leaflets are missing.

This data showed that there were just 76 total retail inspections undertaken by the service in Cork in 2025, around 10% of the 725 total inspections around Ireland.

In the first three months of 2026, the latest date for which data is available, 127 Cork inspections were carried out while the national total was 573. The figure has already far surpassed the total inspections carried out across the county in 2025.

Inspections are up 300% across Ireland, and 568% in Cork specifically, in the first three months of this year.