Mr. Chris Macey:

I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to address the committee on legislation we believe will save the lives and enhance the quality of life of untold numbers of people in Ireland in the years and decades ahead.

We commend the Government and the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, in particular for standing up against the might of the global tobacco industry to protect the nation, particularly our children, from the lethal effects of tobacco.

The committee has heard the evidence on the need for plain packaging. I will address the bogus arguments used by the tobacco industry and its funded groups to oppose the proposed legislation to protect a business model which, given that 80% of smokers start before they are 18, relies on replacing dead smokers with children and young people. In addressing their claims, it is useful to first look at Big Tobacco's broader strategy to maintain profit levels by subverting national and international health policy.

Given that the industry has been so discredited, not least by years of lying about the health impact of smoking, it needs others to make arguments on its behalf. For many years it has provided funding to a diverse range of hidden persuaders to achieve its aims, including retailers' groups, business and trade organisations, fake grass roots organisations, assorted lobbyists and others.

It is virtually certain, in our opinion, that every organisation opposing plain packaging at these hearings will have a funding link, direct or indirect, to the tobacco industry, even if some do have genuine, if misplaced, concerns. While its coffers are empty in terms of credibility, the industry has no shortage of cash to pay for support. The five biggest tobacco companies alone make profits of over $37 billion a year, making them bigger than Coca Cola, Microsoft and McDonalds combined.

The model of who the industry funds to make its case is strikingly similar from country to country. Likewise, the arguments it makes against policies to protect the public from smoking tend to be recycled for repeated use regardless of the specific policy intervention. For example, on issues ranging from increasing taxation, legislation banning shop displays and now plain packaging, the industry claimed that each would increase smuggling and hit retail jobs without reducing smoking, but these initiatives have spearheaded a decline in smoking rates, from 29% six years ago to 22% last year, a reduction of 200,000 smokers, without any of the industry's dire predictions coming true.

As regards smuggling, plain packs will still carry current security markings, health warnings and other labels. Consequently, the Garda and Revenue told this committee categorically there was no evidence plain packaging would increase smuggling. Clearly, it is not in their interest to make such a clear assertion if there is room for doubt.

The truth has not deterred the industry. Even since then, tobacco companies, at least one of which has a plain packaging campaign co-ordinator, have visited retailers claiming plain packaging will reduce their sales by 20% due to increased illicit trade.

One constant industry claim is that plain packaging will be a "counterfeiter's charter". Anyone making this argument, particularly in the Irish context, either has no idea what he or she is talking about or is not telling the truth. Research by Revenue and the HSE, which is the only measure of tobacco smuggling not produced for the industry in this country, shows that our smuggling rate is 13% - slightly above the EU average. Of this, 1% is counterfeit and virtually all the rest is the product of the legal industry. Counterfeit tobacco in an Irish context is virtually irrelevant and, therefore, provides no valid argument on plain packaging here.

Even aside from the absence of any difference in the level of difficulty between counterfeit in current or plain packs, the fact is that while the industry has cited concerns about smuggling to prevent budget tax increases and then hiked up its own prices in each of the past ten years, there is growing suspicion that the legal industry is again involved in smuggling. This was echoed in the Dáil in November last when the Finance Minister, Deputy Noonan, said he suspected that the legitimate trade is involved in the production of illicit cigarettes. Stronger concerns have been voiced in the UK Parliament's Committee of Public Accounts and just this week in Europe, MEPs met international experts to discuss smuggling and the role still being played by the big tobacco manufacturers. Consequently, any organisation coming before this committee expressing fears about smuggling that takes tobacco industry funding should be asked if it understands what it is doing.

There is also no evidence the proposed legislation will negatively affect the retail trade. Plain packaging is primarily intended to discourage young people from starting to smoke and is not likely to have as much impact on current smokers. Therefore, sales reductions resulting from the policy will be gradual, giving retailers considerable time to diversify their business.

In addition, tobacco sales only account for a small proportion of small retailers' profits. While tobacco may account for up to one third of a small retailer's turnover, profit is minimal as, according to one representative organisation, retailers receive an average of 8.7% of the price of tobacco products. The size of this income stream is reflected in assertions by retailers' representatives that it will not be worth their members' while selling cigarettes when the licence fee increases to €500.

Another industry claim is that introducing plain packaging is tantamount to the Government appropriating their trademarks. Apart from the grotesque notion that intellectual property rights for tobacco firms are more important than our children's health, this is legally without foundation. The Australian courts ruled plain packaging did not represent an acquisition of property by government from which it could benefit. Here, a legal challenge cannot succeed once the State shows plain packaging is rationally connected to improving public health and is a proportionate response.

Finally, when all else fails, the industry and its supporters complain that tobacco control legislation is an attack on individual freedom and interference from the nanny state. This is their most ludicrous argument of all. Tobacco is quite possibly the greatest usurper of individual freedom in the history of the planet. Not only is it among the most addictive substances known to man, it kills half its regular users. What more conclusive denial of freedom is there than your premature death? Similarly, if we really had a nanny state, would 5,200 people be allowed to die each year from smoking?

By measuring the strong evidence supporting plain packaging against the industry's lists of baseless claims recycled from other lost battles, a simple choice emerges between protecting our children's health or industry profits regardless of the human cost.