{"id":647622,"date":"2026-10-07T15:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T15:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/647622\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T15:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T15:32:14","slug":"bid-to-cut-smoking-abject-failure-dail-told-as-budget-pushes-cigarette-prices-higher-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/647622\/","title":{"rendered":"Bid to cut smoking \u2018abject failure\u2019, D\u00e1il told, as budget pushes cigarette prices higher \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A packet of 20 cigarettes will cost \u20ac20.15 following a \u20ac1 increase in the budget<\/a>, bringing the tax take to \u20ac16.03 or almost 80 per cent of the retail price.<\/p>\n

Ireland continues to have the most expensive cigarettes in Europe and now has the second highest cigarette prices in the world behind Australia, where a 20-pack costs \u20ac21.02.<\/p>\n

The \u20ac1 increase was accepted in the D\u00e1il on Tuesday night by 110 votes to 48.<\/p>\n

The pro-rata increase in the price of a typical pouch of roll-your-own tobacco is \u20ac1.39, bringing the retail cost to \u20ac29.72.<\/p>\n

Introducing the tax, Minister for Further and Higher Education James Lawless said the increase on tobacco products would yield approximately \u20ac63.1 million in a full year, and \u20ac5.1 million for the remainder of 2026.<\/p>\n

He claimed the State\u2019s policy to cut smoking rates \u201cis working, according to the evidence\u201d. In 2007, 29 per cent of people were daily smokers. \u201cBy contrast, in 2025 that figure is reduced to 17 per cent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But Labour TD Duncan Smith<\/a> described the Government\u2019s policy as an \u201cabject failure\u201d as he called on the Government \u201cto be honest\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Tobacco-Free Ireland strategy launched in 2013, when smoking rates were at 22 per cent, set a target of a 5 per cent smoking rate by 2025 but \u201cthey\u2019re at 17 per cent\u201d, Smith said.<\/p>\n

Smith added the price increase had \u201cbecome a substitute for what should be a robust public health policy, because there are 100 deaths a week, a thousand hospitalisations a week due to smoking\u201d. <\/p>\n

The Dublin Fingal East TD added that cigarettes are now \u20ac1 each but the figure might as well be \u20ac10. \u201cIf you\u2019re not backing up the taxation side with a robust public health approach, you\u2019re going to continue to fail. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis Government has to be honest about their failure\u201d and acknowledge that \u201cwe\u2019re miles away from where we need to be\u201d, Smith said.<\/p>\n

He said successive governments \u201cabandoned the robust approach in favour of this old reliable\u201d of tax increase, which is not making a difference.<\/p>\n

It is \u201cregressive, not to mention the fact that almost a billion euro in revenue is being lost to the black market\u201d. <\/p>\n

Independent TD Danny Healy-Rae<\/a> said if people smoked five packs a week, it would cost them more than \u20ac100.<\/p>\n

He said he smoked a cigarette once. \u201cI didn\u2019t like it and I never smoked after that\u201d but he said people tell him \u201cit\u2019s the only comfort we have\u201d. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0From 20 cigarettes a day for 55 years to finally quitting: \u2018I took it up thinking I was the big man\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The Kerry TD did not think it would affect smoker behaviour but it would mean \u201cthey\u2019ll endure more hardship\u201d to keep smoking, particularly those on low incomes.<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in Cork North-Central TD Thomas Gould said there was a time when a price increase \u201chad an impact\u201d but, calling on the Government \u201cto be honest on where we are now\u201d, he said \u201cthis strategy has diminishing returns\u201d.<\/p>\n

Just pushing prices up as a strategy \u201cis not enough\u201d and education was needed. He pointed to reports that almost \u20ac1.1 billion of unregulated illicit cigarettes were consumed in Ireland last year at a cost of more than \u20ac800 million to the Revenue Commissioners.<\/p>\n

Independent Paul Gogarty said the campaign to reduce tobacco usage had not worked as people hoped it would. Now there is also vaping and \u201csynthetic chemicals out there\u201d causing psychosis. This \u201cnew stuff needs to be stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said \u201cthe revenue from excise duty on cigarettes is half of the cost to our healthcare system from people who have fallen ill because of tobacco products\u201d.<\/p>\n

Gogarty said \u201ceven allowing for the black-market risk\u201d, there was scope \u201cfor it to be increased further\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Dublin Mid-West TD said \u201ccigarette-butt tossers get away with murder. It\u2019s a \u20ac250 fine but trying to actually get that fine out of them is quite difficult because of the burden of proof\u201d. He said trying to get them to court was equally difficult because \u201cyou\u2019re not allowed to use DNA evidence\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A packet of 20 cigarettes will cost \u20ac20.15 following a \u20ac1 increase in the budget, bringing the tax…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[27511,5168,72,23881,136338,61,60,17162],"class_list":["post-647622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-vaping","tag-budget","tag-business","tag-danny-healy-rae","tag-duncan-smith","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-james-lawless"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}