The taxation scheme of the Irish Government and the Irish Finance Ministry for the expensive price and inaccessibility of tobacco products is to increase their price by 50 cents of a euro every year regardless of inflation, while in the United Kingdom the same policy is a 2% surcharge on inflation.
But for the 2024 budget, Ireland’s finance minister, Michael McGrath, has decided to increase the price of cigarettes by 75 cents of a euro, bringing the average cost of buying them to €16.75. This price has now become more costly than it is in Britain, where packs of 25 instead of 20 cigarettes are as expensive.
The price of tobacco products in Ireland has risen by 50 cents of a euro over the budgets of the past seven years, while the country’s finance minister Michael McGrath said the latest increase of 75 cents is aimed at reducing smoking rates through public health policy in Irish society. He also proposed the introduction of a domestic tax on e-cigarettes that would commence from 2024.
Forest Ireland chairman John Mallon is leading the Irish branch of British smokers’ rights group Forest and said that “Smokers don’t deserve this. Annual tax hikes on tobacco are punishing consumers for enjoying a perfectly legitimate habit. Not only does it discriminate against consumers on lower incomes, it will drive even more smokers to the black market. Excise duty on tobacco was already at punitive levels. Raising it again by 75c is a spiteful attack on law-abiding consumers. Legitimate retailers will lose business to criminal gangs, and smokers who stay within the law will be further punished compared to those who, understandably, buy their tobacco from illicit traders.”
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