John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A couple of weeks ago, I met with Retailers Against Smuggling, a group that will have met many in this House already, to discuss some of the issues around illegal cigarette smuggling and retailers. When I say "retailers", I am talking about shop owners. Shop owners are really losing out. One of the reasons for that is the fact that Revenue has only three scanners around all our ports in Ireland, which are used to try to detect anything coming in. I would really like to have a debate in the coming weeks about what more support we can give our ports and points of entry in this country to try to cut down the level of illegal smuggling coming into the country. It is not only taking money away from the taxpayer and the Exchequer; it is also making it much harder for people to make money in our smaller shops, where the margin is quite tight already. For many people, this can be a large portion of their turnover each year. I say that based on data from the Irish Maritime Development Office, which indicates that Irish ports saw over 1.15 million roll-on-roll-off arrivals and over 1.1 million load-on-load-off container arrivals in 2023. That is clearly a huge amount, so three scanners to try to scan all that is clearly just not enough. After my meeting with Retailers Against Smuggling, it was really brought home to me that we need to do far more around our ports. It would save the taxpayer money when it comes to Exchequer revenue and, equally, would ensure we can maintain the margin of profitability for some of our smaller retailers and shops. I would really appreciate a debate about security around our ports at some stage.