Public Health (Single-Use Vapes) Bill 2025: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-04
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Pádraig Rice (SD), Cork South-Central

Deputy Ward makes a very good point about legislation more generally. A citizen should be able to pick up a Bill, read it, understand it and see what is an offence and what is not an offence. It is a basic tenet of the rule of law that people should be to understand the laws they are expected to abide by. Even if it is the case that we have to go belt and braces, put these definitions in and spell things out in each section, we should do it. We should be able to pick up a Bill, read it and understand each section. Even if that requires a belt-and-braces approach, we need to put in the definitions to spell that out. The Minister of State should have done that here.
I have a general point about the Department of Health's approach to legislation. I have not yet seen it accept a single amendment put forward by either Government backbench TDs or Opposition TDs during my time here.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-04/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:43+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-04