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TOUGHER MEASURES ARE needed to tackle the illegal trade of cigarettes in Ireland, which is costing the Exchequer an estimated €250 million each year, says Senator Catherine Noone.
“The fact that we’re losing a quarter of a billion euro a year through the illegal cigarette trade cannot be ignored,” said Noone, adding that the illicit trade in cigarettes is also costing hundreds of jobs a year due to a loss in excise duties.
The Fine Gael Senator said that a tougher news measures should be implemented, including the improvement of scanning technology at ports. ”While this would involve investment by the State, it could reap significant rewards in terms of detection,” she said.
Noone also said that greater punishments should be applied to those caught buying black market cigarettes: “While everyone accepts that cigarette smuggling is illegal, there also needs to be a level of personal responsibility with this issue. Buying cigarettes that you know to be smuggled is tantamount to complying with illegal activity.”
“Consideration should be given to fining people who are found to be purchasing contraband cigarettes. If we fine people for littering, then why not for avoiding this tax?”
Previously, Finance Minister Michael Noonan rejected the suggestion that the price of cigarettes be raised to €15 – saying that it would increase the risk of tobacco smuggling.
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I think the good senator needs to speak to his party colleague in the department of health.
Rising the price will lead to more black market tobacco.
I think Danny, Senator Catherine Noone might take exception at being labeled a male. You are right to point out that her analysis and proposals are naive. I would add that her poor analysis does great harm to the case for having more women in politics.
Ha..! So stupid of me. My thumbs sometimes don’t quite connect with my brain.
Even if large-scale smuggling is prevented, what comes back from the duty-free can easily pay for your flight when sold on to your friends and family. The government have priced themselves out of the market and that’s a fact that needs to be faced before we start moving stretched Garda resources onto this.
The Irish state hasn’t been able to prevent the importation of hard drugs or firearms.
Noone is delusional if she believes that x-ray machines are going to stem the flood of untaxed cigarettes into the country. A complete waste of money.
Why does she not concern herself with how to get this nation out of it’s economic mess and drop the populist fantasies.
A couple of articles this week about smoking, is somebody in the journal trying to give up?
Where raising the tax would increase smuggling, surely lowering it would decrease it (he suggested with negligible hope)?
Actually raising it to 15 euros would stop a lot of people smoking, a massive reduction in immediate tax revenue to the state.
Nicotine addicts will find another way. If they raised the price of drink to 15 euro a pint (effective prohibition), but you knew plenty of people selling alcohol for 2 euro a pint, would you stop drinking?
Which would also be a massive reduction in immediate tax revenue to the state.
You seem to be reinforcing my point.
I actually don’t think the vast majority of smokers would take recourse to criminality as quickly as you cynically assume. I also think that if beer went to 15 euro then anyone with any sense wouldn’t buy a 2 euro inferior product. Anyone with any sense would home brew.
That said I have paid 15 euros for a beer, but it was very good beer.
On a personal opinion, I would suggest there are two objectives, one below the other:
1. Discourage as many as possible from smoking. Each pack bought increases our healthcare bill somewhere down the line. The tax is a red herring: we’re gaining money today that we’ll have to spend tomorrow. Tobacco lobby tries to divorce these points every time.
2. IF, and only if, people are going to continue to smoke come what may, then they should be taxed reasonably so as to recoup the cost.
I’d agree that if this were a normal commodity, like hats, then your economic model would hold up. But the idea of us charging 3eur and raising more tax, while economically correct, would also lead to serious bills and problems down the line.
” Each pack bought increases our healthcare bill somewhere down the line. ”
So does too much alcohol and over-eating, but people seem to accept that no problem. Now as regards the increases to the healthcare system, how much of an increase are you talking about?
I did a check a few days ago and i found a report published last year saying that in 2009, €1,132 million was collected from cigarettes, and a further €39 million from mostly cigars and cut tobacco.
That’s €1, 171 million brought in from tobacco products.
If tobacco is banned like some people want, how are we going to fill that massive gap in the economy?
Higher Taxes? Cut in services? Both?
And before you say that smokers cost the health services alot of money, show me the figures to back it up.
This is where i got mine, from the revenue services. I suggest you read it carefully.
http://www.revenue.ie/en/about/publications/tobacco-market.pdf
Actually, Damien, the Government is currently debating changes in the pricing structure of alcohol, and calorie counts/sugar tax have been talked about for a while.
Here’s a quick example of the cost of treating smokers: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8086142.stm
I didn’t mention banning tobacco? I can’t defend all the proposals, only the ones I agree with.
Problem being, those figures are for the Britain, where there is a much larger populaton and different attitudes, which will obviously affect the cost.
Come back with figures for Ireland and i’ll take you more seriously.
LOL, yes, cigarettes being the same everywhere, you can divide the cost by their population and multiply it by ours. I’m sure that’s not beyond you.
Well i asked for the irish figures, not the british ones.
So if you are going to bring in the british figures, i suggest you make the adjustments to prove your point, and not expect others to do it for you.
Actually, no, the cost of healthcare was your point. And you were doing it terribly.
As for your other queries – http://www.lmgtfy.com might help.
“Each pack bought increases our healthcare bill somewhere down the line. ”
Those are YOUR words, not mine. And in what way am i doing it terribly? I asked a simple question. A question NO-ONE has been able to give an answer to so far in the other threads i asked.
I have given the figures, and shown where i got them. Is it too much to ask people to show me how much it costs the health system, seeing as how people are throwing it around and not backing up their claims?
Just show me. If it’s shown i’m wrong in any way, i will admit it 100%. But not until then.
Lack of communication in government departments again!!!!
If they did increase cigarettes to €15 a packet it would be cheaper to get a cheap flight to eastern EU countries and fill your suitcase many would do it and i don’t blame them.
Exactly..
My mates just went to Amsterdam for the weekend – to buy tobacco!
A dozen 50g pouches was under €70. (they’re on sale @ €6 each in shops)
A 25g pouch of the same brand here is €9.10 (note – we pay 50% more for 50% less)
With what they saved on getting their tobacco the flights were paid for. If they were to raise the price to €15 you could probably have accommodation and some spends covered in what you would save..
Tax poverty an out of touch numpty part of worst party. Given there is no work, poor education, no real hope of health care and billions been drained out of economy hasn’t she little to bother her.
some propoganda its costing jobs. there really grasping at straws with this one
15 lids proposed for a fresh 20.
Smuggling on the rise.
Hmmmmmm, I wonder if there could be a connection?
hip-hop-daddy-oh-cool-cat-momma
Personally I do not buy tobacco in Ireland anymore as I myself or a few of my family/friends travel quite a bit and buy it as duty free. For instance I can buy 500gms of drum in Portugal for 56 euro price in ireland: 180 euro do the maths and tell me again why I should buy in Ireland. I am all for buying Irish but when there is a recession and money is tight I can save a wallet full. Goverment need to pull their heads out their ar$e$ and wake up!
Went to Spain recently on a smoke run. flight 140 euro. hotel 70 euro for 2 night’s. 2000 cigs (Duty paid) 450 euro.
660 + 100 odd for drinks and munchies. Sunshine free.:-)
Cost in nanny state for 2k fags would have been 910 euro.
You could have been a bigger hero by not smoking and being able to afford two holidays in Spain.
Oh, I forgot to mention that Einstein was a smoker, among other notable “rational beings with a modicum of intelligence”
Einstein et al did not have the amount of information that is available today regarding the effects of smoking. This is why I wote ‘take up smoking’.
Actually what we have is made up science about smoking!
They never had any proof of anything simply created junk science!
JOINT STATEMENT ON THE RE-ASSESSMENT OF THE TOXICOLOGICAL TESTING OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS”
7 October, the COT meeting on 26 October and the COC meeting on 18
November 2004.
http://cot.food.gov.
uk/pdfs/cotstatement
tobacco0409
“5. The Committees commented that tobacco smoke was a highly complex chemical mixture and that the causative agents for smoke induced diseases (such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, effects on reproduction and on offspring) was unknown. The mechanisms by which tobacco induced adverse effects were not established. The best information related to tobacco smoke – induced lung cancer, but even in this instance a detailed mechanism was not available. The Committees therefore agreed that on the basis of current knowledge it would be very difficult to identify a toxicological testing strategy or a biomonitoring approach for use in volunteer studies with smokers where the end-points determined or biomarkers measured were predictive of the overall burden of tobacco-induced adverse disease.”
In other words … our first hand smoke theory is so lame we can’t even design a bogus lab experiment to prove it. In fact … we don’t even know how tobacco does all of the magical things we claim it does.
The greatest threat to the second hand theory is the weakness of the first hand theory.
ROFL – the lobby truly are out on this one.
Don’t forget to mention that you work for Forest Eireann, John, and are funded by the tobacco industry.
Good man.
Clarification: John Mallon, not John Davidson of course.
Patrick Lyons: Indeed, why would any rational human being imbibe alcohol. It is a toxic poison, designated by the IARC as being carcinogenic, induces illness and stupification and rots the gut as well. However, it does have it’s upsides !
The Customs and Excise figure for tobacco is made up of cigarettes, loose tobacco, cigars and pipe tobacco. There is not only Excise, but VAT on all on these products amount to approx €1,500 million a year.
On the other topic of the €5bn NHS costs, this is another example of computer modeling, and not actual hard figures. You could call it propaganda instead of information. However, even if you took that inflated figure, and applied it to our lower population here, it would suggest that the cost of treating smokers in Ireland is below €400m a year, or a quarter of what smokers contribute in the added tobacco taxes. And the many that celebrate that smokers die younger, should remember the pension savings that represents to the State.
Here’s your tough measure – reduce the price of cigarettes – the more affordable they are, the more people will buy legal cigarettes which inturn would eradicate illegal cigarettes. Increased cigarettes sales = increased taxes
America made the same folly in the Volstead Act of 1919 alcohol prohibition. It cost the government billions in enforcement costs yet alcohol was plentiful and led to the roaring 20s,the flapper and the nitelife. Oh so illicit was the feeling of being a bad boy or girl out for the nite drinking and dancing while flaunting the evil moralist governments laws!
Enforcement costs,Blackmarkets and high taxation along with a total dismissal by the public of such things as smoking bans against the peoples rights will lead to the government giving up on tobacco prohibition. Besides the massive junk science campaign of second hand smoke to justify these bans……….
It looks as though the Irish government maybe ready to toss in the towel and get back to business and leave smokers alone.
Smoking is a dying habit.
It is difficult to believe that any rational being with even a modicum of intelligence would take up smoking.
I’m tired of answering that old chestnut Noel and for the record, I wish I was funded by someone right now. But I note the usual anti-smoking fanatic’s tactic of trying to smear the messenger in the hope of avoiding the message.
Pas du tout. Words cost nothing, could easily have put it somewhere in the old reply – your FB profile doesn’t even mention it. Meanwhile, I notice John Davidson’s profile is a shill: 6 friends, most of whom aren’t real, and constantly commenting on anti-smoking articles. What a surprise.
The smuggling would stop if they weren’t so expensive…. You can get a 23 packet of John Player Special Red in Germany for €2…. I don’t see the smuggling stopping anytime soon and with the plans to increase the price even more the government will be lucky if everyone doesn’t start buying imported cigarettes.
It appears that being judgemental and abusive has become quite addictive for some, when it comes to discussing smoking. Left go untreated Patrick, you could become very sick indeed !
John, I am not an addict and I would prefer to see you clutching at straws than clutching cigarettes. The Mayo Clinic has a good site to visit if you are interested in giving up the vile smoking habit. Best of luck with your quest.
All drug addicts will clutch at straws hoping that their drug of choice will not harm them. The evidence proving the harmful effects of smoking is so clear that it is almost unbelievable that any semi-sane or rational human being could attempt to deny it.
One wonders at your own motivation Noel. I would guess that you don’t smoke and any price increase will not affect you. Are you a card carrying member of some organization pledged to persecute smokers, or perhaps someone who profits from the whole racket of the anti-smoking industry ?. Indeed, are you Noel Rock ?
No, you can click on my profile and see fairly quickly – you’d be right though, I don’t smoke. One of my parents does/did. She has lung cancer.
I’m a member of no society, except for the political party that I work for. I have never hidden this, nor made any attempt to.
have your say