Mr. Chris Macey:

The figures show the problem. We spend between €11 million and €12 million a year on helping smokers to quit. The tax cost to smokers, on top of all the other tax they pay, is €1 billion. Between 70% and 80% of smokers want to quit. We have to do more to help them through advertising campaigns, availability of medications and quit services, which is support that can really help people. Cigarettes are more addictive than they were 50 years ago. The industry is always looking at ways to pack more addictive nicotine into them and to make it more difficult than ever to quit. It is more difficult now than it has ever been before. We have to help people more. The State is taking in approximately €1 billion each year from smokers and spending around 1% of that on helping people to quit. It is not right or fair.