cigarettes up by 50 cents

[Sarah Ryan]

€1 per cigarette is in no way a scandal. Tobacco is a non-essential item that causes huge harm to public health and costs taxpayers over €200 million per year in direct medical costs plus over €1 billion annually in indirect/economic costs.

No I fully agree, scandalous was the wrong word to use. I would bar them outright if I had the power to do so.

 

[ClubMan]

The investigators spying on illegal cigarette sellers in Dublin

Team hired by tobacco company cannot make arrests but can feed information to gardaí and Revenue

www.irishtimes.com

Byrne says it’s “very difficult to get an exact handle on the illegal trade because, unfortunately, organised crime groups never make official returns”, but internal JTI figures suggest it’s about 25 per cent of all cigarettes smoked in Ireland.