Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 3 November 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

General Scheme of the Public Health (Tobacco and Nicotine Inhaling Products) Bill 2019: Department of Health

Ms Claire Gordon:

At a broader level, it is exactly as Ms Brophy described in respect of the price differential. Why do people bring the products in? They do so because they are cheaper elsewhere. In that sense, where is the EU harmonisation on the issue to make it so that it is not worth your while bringing products in? Everybody knows somebody who asks them to bring them back a carton of cigarettes when they go on holiday. That is the driver for it. At an EU level, there is such a push for harmonisation on so many issues, and that is one issue that definitely needs to be harmonised to balance it out. Essentially, when we are talking about Finland, what we are wondering is how they got away with it, because it is definitely something that is harmonised at EU level. We are all supposed to act the same way, so we are trying to find out how they got away with it exactly.

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