Mr. Steven Donaldson:

Quite a lot questions were asked, and I thank the committee members for asking them. Tobacco is an emotive topic, so it has generated a heated response. In response to Deputy Ó Caoláin's question about who is bringing in the black market and some of the accusations made about industry involvement, I have the seizure rates from the Revenue Commissioners for 2012. If we go through the companies, we find that 87% of what is coming in is what is known as "illicit whites". These are brands such as Raquel Master, which are coming from Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates. They have nothing to do with the legitimate companies here. We also find that 11% of what is coming in is counterfeit. I can assure members that my company is not involved in smuggling into Ireland. We want to eradicate smuggling globally. We have a strong presence in terms of what we are trying to do on smuggling, which my colleague will talk about later. We actively work with the Revenue Commissioners and with the Customs and Excise here, and with the Garda, to try to tackle smuggling in Ireland. We supplied hundreds of leads which have led to successful criminal prosecutions. The largest seizure in the history of the State - 120 million cigarettes were found in Greenore in 2009 - happened after intelligence was supplied by tobacco companies. We are absolutely committed to reducing smuggling here. Smuggling deprives the Exchequer of money and funds criminality in society, but also it critically undermines health objectives, because we believe that these products are being sold to children at half the price. Therefore, we should all work together because if we can all agree on one thing, it is that if we are going to allow adult citizens in Ireland to smoke, then it should be supplied by a legal supplier.

I spoke to David Crow, who is my counterpart in Australia, about the black market. We know from Australia is that the long-term consumption trend was -3% of people who smoke cigarettes in that country. That has stayed pretty stable. It has dropped to -2% in the year since plain packaging has come in.

What we can see as well is that the amount of illicit trade has grown rapidly in the first six months. Another KPMG report is due out in the coming weeks which will show what will happen for the next six months.