Tobacco smuggling figures overstated in Retail Ireland Report

Questions need to be asked about origins of data in Retail Ireland report, say the Irish Cancer Society and Irish Heart Foundation.

Dublin, 20th August 2012: The Irish Cancer Society and the Irish Heart Foundation welcome Retail Ireland’s call for more resources to be allocated to law enforcement agencies to reduce the availability of illegal tobacco in Ireland. However, Ireland’s leading anti-smoking charities say that questions need to be asked about the origins of the data used in the report ‘Tackling the Black Market and Retail Crime’, which was published today (Monday, August 20th 2012).

The Irish Cancer Society and the Irish Heart Foundation are calling on Retail Ireland / IBEC to use credible figures in its reports and avoid sensationalising the subject matter to the advantage of the tobacco industry.

"The Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Finance have found that 14% of cigarettes smoked in Ireland are smuggled into the country," says Ms. Kathleen O’Meara, Head of Advocacy and Communications at the Irish Cancer Society. ‘This is an unacceptable level but it is 10% lower than the rate claimed by tobacco industry sources in Retail Ireland’s report. The difference in figures is because Retail Ireland is using data collected by the tobacco industry which has a clear conflict of interest in supplying data of this kind.

“The tobacco industry is keen to overstate the rate of smuggling as a high level of illicit trade is used in arguments to reduce the price of tobacco in Ireland. This argument is completely disingenuous given that it’s the tobacco industry that raises the price of cigarettes every year, regardless of whether Government does or doesn’t. The tobacco industry has one of the highest profit margins of any consumer product in the world because they consistently increase price. The Irish Cancer Society and the Irish Heart Foundation call on Government to reject calls not to increase the price of cigarettes in Budget 2013, which will no doubt be made on the back of this report.”

Ireland’s anti-smoking charities also challenge the claim in Retail Ireland’s report that smoking smuggled cigarettes is more dangerous than smoking legal cigarettes. “The fact is that legal cigarettes kill 5,200 people in Ireland every year. They kill more people than the next five causes of preventable death put together and that includes alcohol, obesity and illegal drugs,” says Mr. Chris Macey, Head of Advocacy at the Irish Heart Foundation. “Legal cigarettes contain 4,000 different poisonous substances, including elements that go into rocket fuel and rat poison. To say that they are somehow a ‘safer’ option is ludicrous.”

The charities call on Government to interrogate all data supplied to it by Retail Ireland given that much of it originates from the tobacco industry and its front-groups.