High tax the real reason for cigarette smuggling
If offered a product in one shop for €9 and in another for a mere 60 cents, both being the exact same thing, I know what most people would choose to do. Smugglers will always see an opportunity in an area where a price is falsely inflated. The most respectable people will avail of a bargain when they perceive they have been wronged by officialdom.
But, of course, it doesn’t have to be illegal. The head of Customs & Excise some weeks ago clarified the situation for us. If you travel to any country in Europe, you can buy as much tobacco product as you wish in any shop there, but keep the receipt. Because, by definition, local EU taxes are paid on everything, it is perfectly legal to bring these home for your own use.
From experience, if you bought a full year’s allocation the money you would save would pay for everything on the holiday. Customs can’t take it from you, and you wouldn’t have to deal with the nasty smugglers when you got back here. At the time of the introduction of the smoking ban, the then Minister of Health, Micheál Martin, justified it on the grounds of 3,000 preventable deaths a year. The Irish Cancer Society and the Irish Health Foundation doubled that to 6,000 to make it scary. The spokespeople for ASH said it was 7,000 preventable deaths, to make it very scary.
Yet you report (April 23) that there are 8,000 deaths a year in Ireland from “medical mishaps”. A medical negligence lawyer claims that 160,000 people a year are injured as well due to medical accidents.
Throw in hospital bugs and trolley stress, which are all preventable too, and you have a very ironic situation indeed. Looking at the odds, it’s safer to take a holiday and smoke away than to seek medical attention. But, at the risk of upsetting Mr O’Shea, we all have a lot more to worry about right now.
John Mallon
Shamrock Lawn
Mayfield
Cork
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