An ordinary understanding of the relevant subsection is that a prosecution must fail of anybody who can prove a person aged 18 or 19 came in with a passport, age card or driving licence showing their age to be 18 or 19. If somebody is accused of selling some tobacco product to a person under the age of 21 years and is prosecuted for it and there are proceedings, the retailer can say that the person produced a card showing that he was 19 and there is his defence.
Section 45(1) states: It shall be an offence for a person to sell a tobacco product ... to a person who has not attained the age of 18 years. Section 45(2) provides that "In proceedings for an offence ... it shall be a defence for the person” specified to produce an age card.
Key terms by TF-IDF across 805 words from 5 speakers. The summary quotes the highest-scoring sentences verbatim — nothing is paraphrased.
Tellers: Tá, Senators Paul Daly and Joe O'Reilly; Níl, Senators Michael McDowell and Victor Boyhan.
| Question | Result | Tá–Níl |
|---|---|---|
| Question put: "That the Bill do now pass." | Carried | 13–5 |
Party shown is the one each member held on 2024-11-07, frozen by a dated join — not their party today. The Oireachtas API publishes no date of birth and returns an empty gender field for every member in this period, so no age or gender breakdown is shown.