Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am talking about the State's apparatus in fighting tobacco usage. One organisation cannot have a policy of increasing taxes and making a product more expensive while it can be argued that there is a flood of illegal cigarettes in the country funding criminality and everything else.

There is a similar context in the broader European debate. Some countries in the EU have very cheap legal cigarettes, and it is almost a policy of government to keep them cheap. In the same EU market, we are driving prices up. Cigarettes bought legally in Europe can be transported here for illegal sale. Nevertheless, they are manufactured and sold legally in the EU. It is not joined up thinking.