Mr. Joe Sweeney:

We are the National Federation of Retail Newsagents Ireland and are here to speak about the black market and the illicit trade in tobacco and alcohol.

The illicit trade in cigarettes in Ireland continues to grow. Smuggled cigarettes are on open sale at markets and fairs all over the country. Door to door selling in urban areas is rising rapidly. It is distressing for shop-keepers who pay rates and comply with a multitude of regulations to see an illegal cigarette seller undermining his business without any restraints. The illicit trade is not a small-time, petty criminal's activity.

Last autumn the US Congress published a report, citing its own Department of Homeland Security, which listed the Real IRA alongside Hezbollah, Hamas and the Kurdistan Workers Party, PKK, as global terrorist groups financed through the illicit tobacco trade. Closer to home, the 2012 cross-Border organised crime assessment prepared by the Department of Justice and Equality and the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland in conjunction with An Garda Síochána and the PSNI, stated that dissident republicans are generating significant sums of money from fuel laundering and tobacco smuggling.

According to a recent survey, 29.8% of cigarettes consumed in Ireland had not been taxed here.

We, in NFRN Ireland, want to see fines and deterrents which would be enough to deter illegal trading in tobacco and alcohol.

Almost nobody under the age of 30 is coming into our shops to buy cigarettes, and yet the level of smoking in this age group is almost identical to what it was ten years ago. This is because young people are sourcing their tobacco on the black market, putting cash into the pockets of criminals and subversives.

In the case of illicit alcohol, it is estimated by Retail Ireland that some 42 million litres were consumed in Ireland in 2011. We would like Revenue to produce estimates of the taxes lost in Ireland due to the illicit alcohol trade. We do not have any figures on this, unlike in the case of tobacco.

That is my presentation. NFRN Ireland has some suggestions to put to Government that would enable it combat the illicit trade in those products.