Mr. Frank Gleeson:

That is a comprehensive list of questions and I will attempt to deal with the ones I managed to jot down. What is driving this is organised criminals seeing an opportunity, as they move out of other activities into one in which they believe there is easy money. Fuel laundering and the tobacco trade are easy money, the fines are relatively low and the profits are relatively large. Also, demographics is a factor. There is no doubt that in a recession people who smoke have less money in their pocket to buy a packet of cigarettes, so the attractiveness of buying a packet of cigarettes for €4 versus €9 is significant. My problem with that is that this loss is being experienced by the corner shop which relies of those people's footfall to buy a newspaper and a bottle of milk. It is not the Tescos of this world but the small stores I am worried about - the stores Senator Feargal Quinn has visited as he has tried to help the local towns and villages that are dying.

On the question of what would happen if we implemented everything in the report, I will pick two categories. If everything in our recommendation to address fuel laundering was enacted, it could be eliminated completely because there would be no opportunities and that would result in the pretty straightforward recoupment of €150 million. On the illegal sale of tobacco, if one takes the figure of €500 million, which is I believe is the right number based on my experience as a retailer and from dealing with this issue in recent years, and if the incidence of it was reduced from 30% to 20%, that would result in significant savings of hundreds of millions of euro. Instead of a €500 million problem, it would become a €20 million problem and we would get back €300 million or €400 million. That is a big number also. Some of the other issues such as shoplifting and theft are a little more difficult to address. They account for a 1.4% loss of margin. The best levels I have seen are less than 1%, about 0.4 of 1%, which is probably about €50 million maximum.

In fairness, the Garda Síochána has issued a fantastic report, but the retailers and the Garda need to implement it. There could be a saving of 50%. The report, Tackling the Black Market and Retail Crime, puts a figure of €62 million on the loss generated by the sale of counterfeit goods. I believe that is an underestimate and that the figure is much higher. If one goes to any market around the country, one will see counterfeit products. The volume of counterfeit digital goods is significant. I do not know how many songs are downloaded illegally - Mr. O'Grady Walshe could answer that question - but very few are bought legally. We are trying to support the film industry with tax incentives, yet we are not enforcing the law on counterfeits as people are downloading products directly off the Internet, which should be relatively easy to stop. I do not have exact statistics, but there would be a prize of between €400 million and €500 million if everything to combat the sale of goods on the black market was implemented. That is a great deal of money. Much of that money will flow directly to the Government and the benefit of those goods going through the suppliers' chain to retailers would be double that again.