John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

-----because the smuggled product is cheap and it is a cheaper way to hook children on cigarettes. They will do anything to make cheaper product available. When we see the internecine webs of convoluted and highly implausible sales routes that have been plotted by the major companies through tiny countries, where cigarettes are being imported in such numbers that it would suggest every citizen down to the lowliest newborn baby is smoking several packs a day, to justify the fact that they are being shunted on to other larger markets via illegal, illicit and smuggling routes, we realise that this is a spurious argument.

All of the arguments being advanced by the tobacco industry and its sympathisers are an attempt to row back the regulation of tobacco sales and consumption. The tobacco companies are in a battle. They realise that in our hearts our ambition for their industry is bankruptcy. We want them out of business.