Reilly lights a fire under smoking lobby as State finally gets the picture

THE tobacco industry’s unprecedented visit to Taoiseach Enda Kenny and his ministers Michael Noonan and Alan Shatter would appear to have been a failure.

Earlier this month a group representing authorised tobacco distributors went to government buildings to lobby, among other things, for a crackdown on tobacco smuggling. While their argument was based on self-interest – they want to protect against revenue and profit loss — it appealed to the Government’s self-interest too — black market sales denies the state enormous levels of tax revenue.

Interestingly they linked the issue of tobacco smuggling to something else that worried them: Government plans to follow the example set in Australia where it recently decided that all cigarettes must be sold in plain packaging, without logos or branding. This, the industry believes, makes life much easier for the smugglers: they no longer have to go to the expense or trouble of copying the packaging of branded products if they can just lump the cigarettes into plain packs.