By Valerie Ryan
valerie@TheCork.ie
Cork North Central TD Ken O’Flynn has said the Government needs to have an honest, adult conversation about tobacco tax, after Budget 2027 added another €1 in excise to a pack of 20 cigarettes on the same day the Minister for Finance confirmed to him that the illegal tobacco trade is now costing the State €758 million a year.
“I’m not a smoker. I don’t like smoking, and I want fewer people to smoke,” Deputy O’Flynn said. “But we have to be honest about what is actually happening. Every time the price goes up, more people go to the black market. The Government’s own figures prove it.
“In 2021, 13% of cigarette packs smoked in Ireland were illegal. Last year it was 28%. More than one in four. For roll your own tobacco it is 37%. The estimated loss to the Exchequer has gone from €309 million to €758 million in four years. That is money that should be in our hospitals and schools, and instead it is financing criminal gangs.
“The Minister’s own reply to me admits that Ireland’s tobacco taxes are ‘practically the highest in the EU’ and that this ‘provides an incentive’ for smugglers. Yet on the very same day, the Government put another euro on a pack. When I asked whether the Department has ever assessed what each excise increase actually did to the black market, or whether those increases delivered the revenue they were meant to, I got no answer.
“And an illegal cigarette is more dangerous, not less. There are no controls on what is in it, and no controls on who it is sold to, including children. When you push something underground, you lose any ability to regulate it.
“Meanwhile, enforcement has stood still. Revenue’s customs staff have been flat at around 900 since 2020, covering every excisable product, not just tobacco. We have fewer detector dog teams than last year. In 2025, the total fines for smuggling and illegally selling tobacco came to just €143,780. Set that against €758 million lost and the gangs are laughing at us.
“This is not about being soft on smoking. It is about being straight with people. If a policy is driving people into the arms of organised crime and losing the tax anyway, it is failing on health and failing on revenue. Before there is one more excise increase, the Government must publish a proper assessment of what the last ones achieved, put real resources into tobacco enforcement, and make the penalties for this trade actually hurt.”
More information
Source: Replies from the Minister for Finance to Parliamentary Questions 70321/26 to 70326/26, 6 October 2026; Budget 2027 statement, 6 October 2026 (excise on a pack of 20 cigarettes increased by €1).
Estimated Exchequer loss from illegal packs: cigarettes €648m and roll your own €110m in 2025 (total €758m); cigarettes €264m and roll your own €45m in 2021 (total €309m).
Illegal share of cigarette packs: 13% (2021), 17% (2022), 19% (2023), 26% (2024), 28% (2025).
2025 convictions: smuggling or evasion of excise, 46 summary and 7 indictable, fines €55,000; illegal selling, 43 summary and 3 indictable, fines €88,780.
Revenue detector dog teams: 26 (end 2025), 24 (end September 2026).