Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I just want to make one final point. I thank the Minister for the data. It would not be nice to see the trend with regard to where that is moving and how it is correlating, if it is at all, with price in the Irish retail market. However, at the end of the day, I know most people are still buying these products from behind the counter in Irish shops and if one, in particular, is trying to prevent people from taking up the habit in the first place, I would say that the point of entry for them is from behind the counter.

I recognise this but I would like to see us doing a little bit more work on this before we go into next year. This is the trend here and Sinn Féin has argued in our alternative budget to put more excise on cigarettes but we probably need a little bit of research. There could be a tipping point here where it is counterproductive. Obviously, if the illicit market is growing, the big problem is that if there is a normalisation, which there is in many communities and households, that 17% of people who are smoking are buying cigarettes from the black market, which is illegal activity, it becomes an issue. I will leave it at that.