Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister's welcome of questions because I have a couple in that regard. While I do not have a problem with the State's policy of taxing tobacco products and trying to discourage people from smoking, I would question at what point it becomes counterproductive, in that taxing cigarettes just means people are going to smoke imported cigarettes or that there is a far greater incentive to illegally import cigarettes. I have a friend and any time I go abroad he asks me to bring him back 200 cigarettes. I am sure he does the same with lots of other people. The longer I do it, the shorter our relationship will be but that is what people do. I see more and more Spanish warnings on boxes of cigarettes or pouches of tobacco, or Polish or Lithuanian warnings - take your pick of languages. We obviously do not know what proportion of illegally imported cigarettes are coming into Ireland. I presume there is also no record of what proportion of cigarettes smoked in Ireland are from people who legally import them, as I would. Maybe we do. Maybe the Minister is going to contradict me.

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