Children have unfettered access to cigarettes from retail outlets and "enforcement is non existent", according to the Office of Tobacco Control.
A study commissioned by the office found that 81 per cent of children who smoke buy their cigarettes from local shops. Some 20 per cent of 13-year-olds smoked "to be cool" while another 20 per cent cited peer pressure - 60 per cent gave habit or addiction as reasons.
"The tobacco story is about human suffering - not about economics or freedom of speech or commercial property rights," Mr Tom Power, the office's director, told the Oireachtas committee.
He said Irish tobacco companies were fully au fait with modern tobacco technologies and responsibility and liability would have to be built into the industry. The committee's chairman, Mr Batt O'Keeffe, said the industry was "irresponsible, misleading, secretive and deliberately undermining public health policy".
Mr Power told TDs and senators the study also showed that, by the time children reached adulthood, 69 per cent had experimented with tobacco and 31 per cent were smokers - figures in keeping with the known prevalence of adult smokers.
The data showed there was "extensive non-compliance with the laws relating to sales of tobacco to minors". He said, however, that 91 per cent of the children surveyed were aware that smoking was harmful and addictive.
Earlier, Mr Tom Mooney, of the Department of Health, conceded that enforcement was the weakest link in our strategy. However, he assured Mr Gay Mitchell TD (FG) that the Public Health and Tobacco Bill would have stringent powers of enforcement which would include public houses.
