Cork Views: Vital tool in fight against nicotine and vapes

The Public Health (Tobacco Products and Nicotine Inhaling Products) (Amendment) Bill 2026 is a measured and necessary response to a market that has changed faster than our laws.

It proposes to:

Ban the sale of nicotine pouches to under-18s.

Restrict the advertising and display of nicotine inhaling products in retail outlets.

Tighten rules on colours and imagery on devices and packaging.

Prohibit products that resemble toys or games.

And limit flavour descriptors, with flavours in nicotine inhaling products to be limited to tobacco.

These are sensible steps aimed at one clear goal: making addictive nicotine products less visible, less attractive, and less accessible to children and young people.

We should also see this Bill as part of a wider direction of travel.

In Ireland, it sits alongside the Public Health (Single-Use Vapes) Bill 2025, which is already moving through the Oireachtas and is intended to ban the sale of disposable vapes.

Together, these measures represent a more coherent public health approach: one that recognises both the health harms of nicotine addiction and the very deliberate ways in which novel products are marketed to young people.

And we are not acting in isolation.

The UK Tobacco and Vapes Bill cleared Parliament on April 21. That legislation includes the so-called ‘smoke-free generation’ measure, preventing the sale of tobacco to people born on or after January 1, 2009, while also strengthening the regulation of vapes and other nicotine products.

That is a significant moment, and it shows that these questions are now being confronted across these islands with greater seriousness and urgency.

At European level, the direction of travel is the same.

On April 1 this year, the European Commission published its evaluation of the EU tobacco control framework, covering both the Tobacco Products Directive and the Tobacco Advertising Directive.

The Commission’s conclusion was twofold: first, that EU tobacco legislation has made a real contribution to reducing smoking and protecting public health; but second, that the current framework is no longer fully keeping pace with a rapidly changing market, particularly the growth of novel tobacco and nicotine products, and their appeal among younger consumers.

The message from Brussels is clear: the framework needs to be updated, and a further review of the EU rules is now firmly on the horizon.

That matters for Ireland, because we are not simply responding to a domestic challenge; we are legislating in step with a broader European reassessment of how tobacco and nicotine products should be regulated in the years ahead.

In the six months from July 1 to December 31, 2026, Ireland will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. That gives us a real opportunity not just to participate in that conversation, but to shape it: to put child protection, prevention, product regulation, and public health ambition at the centre of the European agenda.

Ireland has often been at its best when we have been prepared to lead on public health rather than wait for others.

Our Presidency offers the chance to re-establish this country as a European and global leader in tobacco control: to show that strong regulation, evidence-based policy, and the protection of the next generation are not obstacles to progress, but part of what responsible leadership looks like.

So this Bill matters not only for what it does today, but for the signal it sends about the Ireland we want to be: ambitious in public health, serious about prevention, and determined to protect the next generation from addiction.