(Above: part of a consignment of illegal but still relatively attractive tabs seized at Dublin Port last year)
Minister of State for primary care Alex White yesterday described the tobacco industry as a very powerful lobby that had to be challenged.
Mr White dismissed the industry’s argument that raising excise duty on cigarettes encouraged smuggling as “sometimes self-serving”.
Cigarette packets must carry graphic photographs highlighting the dangers of smoking from next month, he said.
“These packs will appear in our shops from February 1st . . . and will assist in making the packaging of cigarettes, as it were, less glamorous and attractive.”
Well that’s just ridic…hack! cough! harrumph!
Never mind.
Tobacco lobby ‘has to be taken on’ (Mary Minihan, Irish Times)
(Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland)