Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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Question 123: To ask the Minister for Finance in view of the important findings and conclusions of the internal Revenue Commissioners report, Economics of Smoking: Modelling the Market for Cigarettes in Ireland, which are significantly at variance with the international peer reviewed published literature on this topic, if he will arrange for the report to be peer reviewed internationally to validate its methodology and findings. [26158/11]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The report "Economics of Tobacco: Modelling the Market for Cigarettes in Ireland " is based on analysis done by Revenue's Research and Analytics Branch. The research was conducted in 2010 and the report was published on the Revenue and Department of Finance websites in early 2011.

Neither I nor the Revenue Commissioners are aware of any suggestion that the research is significantly at variance with international peer reviewed published literature on this topic, or that any questions have been raised about the methodology. If the Deputy has information to support these views, the Revenue Commissioners would welcome it.

I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that the report fully documents the methodology, the econometric model and the data sources used and it is therefore open to any researcher seeking to replicate or validate the results. The research follows an internationally established methodology to examine the factors determining cigarette consumption.

In general, the findings are consistent with existing Irish and international literature in measuring the main influencing factors on smoker behaviour. A key difference identified is that the sensitivity of consumption of cigarettes to price changes in Ireland is found to be higher than average. However, this finding is consistent when the relatively high price of cigarettes and the level of consumption of untaxed cigarettes in Ireland are considered. This issue is examined in detail in the paper.