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IRELAND HAS THE third highest trade for non duty tobacco in the EU, behind only Latvia and Lithuania.
However both Baltic states have decreased their Non Duty Paid (NDP) levels since 2012 while Ireland has stayed at 28.3 per cent.
It costs €9.40 for a pack of 20 cigarettes here, the second highest price in the EU.
The UK is slightly higher at €9.94 yet their NDP level is just 15.5 per cent, down from 21.5 per cent in 2012.
TD Billy Kelleher made the point that “The tobacco companies are part and parcel of smuggling in the sense that most tobacco smuggled into this country is made legitimately by these tobacco companies in other jurisdictions where they flood the market which cheap cigarettes, making it financially viable for smugglers to bring them into this country”.
(Irish Tobacco Manufacturers Advisory Committee)
A surveys undertaken BY IPSOS MRBI found that in 2012, 13 per cent of cigarettes consumed in Ireland were illicit. The figures for 2013 are not yet available.
A spokesperson for the Irish Tobacco Manufacturers Advisory Committee said, “As an island we should be dealing with this problem a lot easier then we are.
There is no doubt the high cost of legitimate tobacco is pushing more people to the illicit trade but unless the government seriously address the problem by taking an integrated approach through the proposed informal working group on illicit trade, then the problem will only get worse.
(Irish Tobacco Manufacturers Advisory Committee)
The link between high price and high NDP levels is strong with Ireland and France having some of the highest prices in Europe and also ranking third and fourth within the EU’s illegal tobacco trade.
Ireland is also one of the highest countries taxed for tobacco products with approximately 78 per cent of the price going to Government in excise and VAT.
The Irish Tobacco Manufacturers Advisory Committee criticised the Government’s approach to illicit tobacco sales,
As a country that considers itself a leader in tobacco control the Government needs to do much more to deal with the black market.
“Fines must be increased, the average fine in 2013 was €2,600, this is not acting as a deterrent to criminal gangs who are reportedly generating profits of €3 million per week”.
The Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan, has said that “combating the illegal tobacco trade is, and will continue to be, a high priority for the Revenue Commissioners.
Their work against this illegal activity includes a range of measures designed to identify and target those who are engaged in the supply or sale of illicit products, with a view to seizing the illicit products and prosecuting those responsible.
Noonan added that “This multi-faceted strategy includes ongoing analysis of the nature and extent of the problem, developing and sharing intelligence on a national, EU and international basis, the use of analytics and detection technologies and ensuring the optimum deployment of resources at points of importation and within the country”.
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I’m sick of paying nearly a tenner for twenty smokes. I’ve had to take a pay cut at work and 50 quid a week I spend on smokes is to much. I want to smoke don’t nanny me. Its nothing but a government money making scam I don’t buy black market smokes because I only like my own brand. But I wish every one who smokes them all the best including the smugglers cause 73% tax is just robbery.
Don’t smoke then
You should switch to a smuggled brand. You’ll get used to it after a few days.
Every smoker in Ireland should switch over until they do something about it.
I buy my cigarettes down on moore street €4.50 pack of twenty.same cigarettes are €10 in the shop.
So when you are in your 60′s and your lungs are rotten with disease why should hard working people who looked after themselves and their families pay tax so you can cost a fortune..
What’s the name of the smokes you buy.
Do you feel any duty to your family (to be well enough to keep earning a living) or to the next generation (to provide a positive instead on negative example in relation to becoming addicted to smoking?)
I have insurance with laya healthcare cause I work I’ve no medical card.
mmz do you drink and eat crap food? Or drive a car or walk aross the street? lol This is best one. Stress is the highest killer in world. You work hard and get stressed when cant pay bills and have them harassing for payments. Everything causes health issues. Lets ban them all.
Do you drink seanie?
Because I don’t pay tax or work hard? My taxes pay for a lot of stuff I don’t need, but I’m not complaining about it. I’d be less angry if cigarettes were outright illegal, because the way things stand at the moment I pay a fecking fortune to have everyone give out to me.
Increase the tax and you’ll increase the demand for cheap tobacco. Simple
Just handing money to whoever wants some easy cash.
They can’t be that stupid. I think they are doing it on purpose. Monies getting paid everyday into their pockets from Illicit trade gangsters.
“Earlier this year, Ireland’s Office of Revenue Commissioners made a shock discovery, albeit one which sounds slightly dull when put in the language of economics. They found that the price elasticity of cigarettes in Ireland is -3.6, which is to say that a 10% increase in price reduces sales by 36%. This came as a surprise because cigarettes—being notoriously addictive—are usually thought to have a consumption elasticity of less than -1.0, whereas a price elasticity of -3.6 implies that smokers are more price sensitive than people who buy jewellery, DVDs and toothpicks. This struck them as rather counterintuitive, to say the least.
Something was clearly up, and what had been going up was smuggling. Since 2002, the price of cigarettes has risen by 40% in real terms to 8.55 euros a pack and the black market has swollen accordingly.”
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/liberty-justice/laffer-curve-sighted-in-ireland
Why don’t you call it like it is ? There has been a huge increase in the ILLEGAL smuggling of cigarettes into Ireland and other northern european states that have used high prices as a deterrent to having today’s taxpayers children become fodder for the the satanic sleeveens sitting on the boards of the mass cancer producing tobacco corporations.
The tobacco companies ( as well as their free market idealogical supporters) are worried by this as the punters keep dying and new ones need to be provided. The tobacco companies themselves have therefore conspired with the gangsters to feed an illegal supply of child centred carcinogents – cigarettes to you and me – into the markets of those states where they have lost control of the PR / political lobbying agenda because they are not able to bribe / threaten the politicians.
As a supporter of Adam Smith’s legacy you should recognize the importance of a strong efficiently run state needed for commercial activity to thrive in. How does this square in your mind with the prospect of a health system burdened with the cost of hundreds of thousands of cases of middle aged cigarette addicted citizens with extreme medical conditions (lung cancer, heart disease, dementia) which all have to be supported on the public purse or through parasitical private medical insurance…? I thought Adam Smith was concerned with the Wealth of Nations and their development and growth – not as you seem to be, in the enslavement of their citizens by the promotion of an addiction more powerful than heroin. That is apart from your endorsement of the mafia tactics of your client international tobacco corporations behaviour in organizing smuggling of cigarettes into countries that you and they wish to destroy.
mmz, either you have not read the article, do not understand it or are too caught up in your own ideological agenda to put context to the linked article.
“There are plenty of arguments for and against high cigarette taxes. Some say that the government has a moral obligation to deter unhealthy pursuits while others think it is morally objectionable to exploit inelastic behaviour, ie. addiction. Leaving the ethical debate to one side, it cannot be denied that governments do receive significant sums of money from tobacco taxes and have done for many years. As Ireland’s customs wonks have now realised, this golden goose has reached the limit of how many eggs it can lay.”
The author is not making a moral judgement on the rights and wrongs of cigarette smuggling or defending tobacco companies but pointing out the limitations of prohibitive pricing of cigarettes as a public health initiative. Something that has been understood for a long time.
It would be nice to believe that prohibitive pricing and statutory prohibitions provide a panacea for real, or perceived, social evils, but humans don’t work that way. Ultimately, this plays into the hands of criminals creating an entirely new set of social problems.
Even the most oppressive regimes have not been able to thwart the demand for prohibited goods and ultimately end up creating a wealthy criminal class that the young and dispossessed can aspire to. Many Soviet leaders were aided in their rise to power by the fartsovshchiks.
Mr o’keeffe, you put it succinctly and correctly. However, never underestimate the ability of bigots and idealogues to ignore what is staring them in the face.
Price difference between here and Germany around € 4.00 dearer here is that all tax?
Increased duty = increased smuggling (take a look back in history – Brandy and lace in the 1700s), make smoking illegal = increased criminality not just that by smokers but also suppliers see prohibition in the States.
That was possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever read. Well done.
Increase the price of them.that will stop it
Increasing the price will just further increase the import of illicit cigarettes.
I take it you didn’t pick up on my sarcasm
How wud that stop it ???
Well Prohibition worked well in the U.S back in the 20s.
Prohibition involved the banning of the sale of alcohol not the case here in regards to cigarettes.
Yeah but they are trying to force people to stop by making them beyond their capacity to buy them. So where will they go,if they cant or dont want to stop? Cheaper market.
AH LEGALISE IT!!
Gardai are just too busy winning the war on drugs
Lol it was sarcasm. I wish there was a universally accepted font that could express that in text
war on plants you ment
Considering we are an island is amazing. Unless they park outside a Garda station with a sign on the trucks it is unlikely to change. The reports by the spin doctors paint a specific picture to meet the needs of the top brass. If the biggest drug find( not caught by Gardai) was left out of the statistics quoted we would be the worst in Europe for crime detection. A demoralised force for years due to lack of prisons and judges being too lenient. Why bother if you are a Garda?
Them cigarettes are full of crap, i opened one and there was plastic shredded into the tobacco, it was rotten..
Yeah. Me too. When I used to smoke. For no reason the cigarette would go out. There was bits of filters sometimes within the main bit of the cigarette. Silk Cut Sliver. I’d been smoking plastic.
Actually mine weren’t smuggled cigarettes. I think it was just Silk Cut Silver.
Article based on tobacco lobby information!
Obvious – and they are doing the smuggling (with inferior products) so that they can tame our government and get them back into line….
Simple. Anyone caught selling/importing illegal Tobacco or Fuel slap them with a minimum mandatory €50,000 fine with no maximum. And if they refuse to pay it seize All their assets including their House with no obligation to re-house them or pay welfare until such time as the Fine is paid.
Too sensible – so would never happen.
I agree. Smuggling cigarettes isn’t required to achieve social justice. :-)
I was pulled over and jailed in Hawaii for rolling through a stop sign.
“Why are you arresting me for a STOP SIGN!?” , I protested.
“We want to nip that behavior in the bud”, the cop said.
Couldn’t argue with that.
Explains why they think people are quitting smoking. Oh wait they are not they are buying them black market. Keep hiking the prices dumb minister and people will be buying all from black market.
What is it they say, Prohibition didn’t work either. You would think they would cop on,humans will smoke drink if they want.
Cigarettes!!! Tabocco!!! if they want to stop it just head to Moore st.
And they’re so, so cheap to buy legitimately here too.
Well, there’s a shocker for the government!!! Who’d have thought that sticking a load of tax upon tax on something would lead to an illegal smuggling trade.. whatever next?? People running Green or laundered diesel (only because the same can’t be done with petrol also)??? They should set up a PAC inquiry, hire the best solicitors and a grand an hour and a few dozen advisors and experts on 7 figure payments and see if that can all find their own asses with both hands..
“It costs €9.40 for a pack of 20 cigarettes here, the second highest price in Europe.” Are we not third or by Europe do you mean the EU? Norway is €2 dearer than ourselves and the UK.
Ye that’s what it says the second highest in the EU.
Homophobic slur in the hash tags there.
Whats a Fake Fag Greg.
Constant vigilance.,,
When the price of cigarettes goes up, the reason that is given is that it is to put people off buying them. That is nonsense, if they wanted to stop people buying them, put them up to €20 with immediate effect, not in increments of only €0.20 as people have already reasoned with themselves to pay the price – 20 cent more won’t deter them.
James O’Reilly wants a smoke-free Ireland, but claims that fully outlawing cigarettes would drive up the figures for counterfeiting and the black market for cigarettes would thrive, which it no doubt would. I have an alternative idea, why not leave the price of the cigarettes alone, leave them on sale in shops, but make it illegal to smoke in public? Employ plain clothes “police” to issue on-the-spot fines for anyone smoking (in rural towns they could have the parking warden do this). Cigarettes would remain freely available but smoking the things would be a nightmare. Would any of you that are smokers continue to smoke (alternatively, would this incentivise you to quit) if the only place that you could have a cigarette is inside your own home? From one end of the day to the other you would be in a constant state of withdrawal and would be better off quitting. It would also eliminate the phenomenon of the “social-smoker”.
I’d love this to happen, they are filthy nasty things that litter the streets, make people STINK, waste peoples’ money and good health and tear apart families.
Jesus Paddy, take another one of those pills you must be on. The old hatred will consume you eventually ya’ know.
Since when do cigarettes tear families apart?
Increase penalties, mandatory long sentences after 2nd conviction for smugglers
Those caught in possession should face large fines deducted at source from wages or dole
And we all know how that went with the “War on Drugs”
Hardly an independent source of information.
Lazy journalism.
A start to tackle crime would be to make all phone users register their phones with id and addresses. You shouldn’t be able to buy a SIM card without proof of address. Most of Europe have this done so they can track criminals.
I’d say most of the red thumbs are those who are benefiting from crime and avoiding tax and don’t want teform
Reform
Japers, what a shock – who’d a thunk it? It would behove this assinine, politically correct (in the worst sense of the phrase only) to consider that if you raise unjust taxes in any area, your populace will seek to circumvent it. Red diesel and tobacco, the two growth industries for criminal gangs. When will these gob Shi tes who claim to represent us wise up?
Surprising that this illegal trade is never referred to by the cannabis legalisation lobby. Just because something is legal, does not mean that some people won’t try to supply it without having to adhere to legal standards in regards to quality of product or paying VAT on it.
I think they should lower the price to around 3.90-5€ then most of the illegal smugglers won’t bother there arse!
F N garda as useless as Martin dunne and his quick response vehicle management team.
So maybe if we lowered the price to something like 10 cents/pack, they’d smuggle all the bloody things OUT of Ireland. LOL!!
Obviously we need stronger policing and far tighter customs and coast guard, but the government wont invest in these despite how clearly vital they are to our security and economy.
The government has noone to blame but themselves, and we have noone to blame but ourselves for voting them in. They’ll be cutting the unnecessary cost of elections next, along with what’s left of our armed forces. Snip snip.
Who would you rather had been voted in, Dónal? (Bear in mind that whoever you voted in was going to have to implement the Troika’s cuts, which fecked up the economy even more, which means there’s no money to invest in security and economy…)
The troikas cuts could have been implemented differently.
One cut I’d have made without shame or hesitation is the €629 million of our tax money that gets sent abroad as foreign aid every year. We are one the most charitable nations on earth when it comes to voluntary aid. Our government shouldn’t donate our tax money, we give our own money ourselves. At the moment our country isn’t in a position to afford that level of generosity if it comes at the expense of our own security and the well being of our own dependants. We owe no debt to the third world like the UK, Belgium or France do, so we don’t have that moral obligation. https://www.cafonline.org/PDF/WorldGivingIndex2013_1374AWEB.pdf http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/ireland-once-again-the-most-generous-nation-in-europe-1.1614930
So if the UK can reduce their illegal tobacco trade with a higher cigarette price than us, why can’t we?
already looking for an excuse to increase the price further, idiots, look at Belarus, 92 cents for a pack of 20, i bet they have 0% black market.
Nice article by the tobacco industry. Their figures just don’t add up, though… http://wp.me/p2pxcv-2j
(Journal, could we get some balance in articles, please? Or at least fact-checking?)
Somehow, I think that’s the point…
Good result but we really need to push for gold next year..
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