Free trade – or daylight robbery

IT HAS to be more than an anomaly that smuggling can make handsome profits in a free trade area such as the EU.

By definition, surely, anyone who pays tax on beer or smokes in France or Italy should not be surcharged, penalised or double-taxed for bringing these goods back across EU borders to Ireland or Britain irrespective of the amounts involved.

Customs and Excise are acting as a law unto themselves by interfering in this free trade. It could be construed as provocation and simply encourages smuggling and black marketeering.