How much should a pack of cigarettes cost in Ireland?

MJI

A pack of Marlboro cigarettes costs less than €1.80 in Sochi, Russia

The same pack of Marlboros will set you back more than 8 times that amount in Australia, where they cost €14.54



This map produce by IBM shows a general trend of higher prices in Western Europe, North America and Australia. With much lower prices in Asia, Africa and South America.

http://2.ashbu.cartocdn.com/ibtimes/api/v1/map/f4cfc8baa7f436df17c3d8554ae19619:1391790290023.8901/0/2/1/1.png


Here in Ireland the price is now €10.50.

Is this too high, too low or about right?

How much should a pack of cigarettes cost in Ireland?

osarusan

A pack of Marlboro cigarettes costs less than €1.80 in Sochi, Russia

The same pack of Marlboros will set you back more than 16 times that amount in Australia, where they cost €14.54

1.8 x 16 = 28.8.

fizzypish

osarusan wrote: »

1.8 x 16 = 28.8.

In fairness he/she did say more than 16 times....

BrokenArrows

fizzypish wrote: »

In fairness he/she did say more than 16 times....

Technically correct, the best kind of correct!

SEPT 23 1989

They should be free on the medical card

frozenfrozen

the price is so high most people are buying illegal imports or bringing them in from other countries themselves, so they should change the price to a point where at least all the money spent of them would be getting taxed by the government

smash

frozenfrozen wrote: »

the price is so high most people are buying illegal imports

No they're not.

washman3

Cigs are an unbelievable cash cow for the Government.
The extortionate price has little or nothing to do with health and wellbeing, in spite of the rubbish they frequently spout.

runawaybishop

fizzypish wrote: »

In fairness he/she did say more than 16 times....

16 times 1.80 is 28.80. They do not cost more than 28.80 in Australia.

BrokenArrows

They should just be made illegal. End of.
The only reason the government keep raising the price via tax is because they say they want to discourage usage due to its known health implications.

They know for a fact that smoking causes cancer.
Any other product on the market which is even suspected of causing cancer is removed immediately.

Why are cigarettes any different? Because they make the government a tonne of cash.

osarusan

fizzypish wrote: »

In fairness he/she did say more than 16 times....

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Technically correct, the best kind of correct!

That still doesn't make it right, 'technically' or otherwise!

they said 'less' than 1.80 - maybe they meant 0.80?

zoobizoo

Most people don't buy their cigarettes off illegal dealers - that's just propaganda put out by the tobacco industry.

Higher prices mean people smoking less.

smash

BrokenArrows wrote: »

They know for a fact that smoking causes cancer.
Any other product on the market which is even suspected of causing cancer is removed immediately.

Why are cigarettes any different? Because they make the government a tonne of cash.

cigarettes and diesel cars! Ban both of them!!!

TallGlass

BrokenArrows wrote: »

They should just be made illegal. End of.
The only reason the government keep raising the price via tax is because they want to discourage usage due to its known health implications.

They know for a fact that smoking causes cancer.
Any other product on the market which is even suspected of causing cancer is removed immediately.

Why are cigarettes any different? Because they make the government a tonne of cash.

Maybe because alot of them are smokers also?

LDN_Irish

BrokenArrows wrote: »

They should just be made illegal. End of.
The only reason the government keep raising the price via tax is because they want to discourage usage due to its known health implications.

If you believe that you'd believe anything. The tax is so high because they know people will buy them regardless. Same with drink and petrol.

The_Valeyard

Poll options are invisible for me??? Must be all the smoke from the cigs

NachoBusiness

You can't put a price on looking cool.

Menas

LDN_Irish wrote: »

If you believe that you'd believe anything. The tax is so high because they know people will buy them regardless. Same with drink and petrol.

Just like that 'green tax' they brought in a few years ago to make us more aware and to help the environment.
Me arse. Just another revenue source.

KERSPLAT!

Meh, I don't smoke so it makes no odds to me. Jack them up to €20 a packet for all I care. I just hope they're too expensive for my kids to even think about picking them up, as well as them being smart enough to know better than to go near them in the first place

jester77

Well, they are a luxury and not something that you need. There are no advantages to them, but lots of disadvantages, including big ones like health and littering. €10.50 is an ok price when you consider the drawbacks.

TallGlass

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

Meh, I don't smoke so it makes no odds to me. Jack them up to €20 a packet for all I care. I just hope they're too expensive for my kids to even think about picking them up, as well as them being smart enough to know better than to go near them in the first place

Don't mean to quote you directly ! But in fairness if people pay 50€ for a bag of weed or 100€ for a bag of cocaine, then I assume some people will also pay 20€ for the cigs.

They should run a few progams on TV, make people more aware of the reality of what they are doing and get people to stop thinking, 'ah sure that won't happen to me'.

Zillah

fizzypish wrote: »

In fairness he/she did say more than 16 times....

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Technically correct, the best kind of correct!

It's massively less than 16 times so they're even more wrong. You people wouldn't get past a junior cert maths exam.

Warper

smash wrote: »

No they're not.

Yes they are i havnt bought a pack in a shop here in over two years and will continue to buy cigs from Eastern Europe

fizzypish

osarusan wrote: »

1.8 x 16 = 28.8.

Zillah wrote: »

It's massively less than 16 times so they're even more wrong. You people wouldn't get past a junior cert maths exam.

28.8 is more than 16.
1.80 was the cost of a pack in Russia or something.

smash

Warper wrote: »

Yes they are i havnt bought a pack in a shop here in over two years and will continue to buy cigs from Eastern Europe

What you buy does not equal what most people buy. I don't know a single person who'd risk buying counterfeit cigarettes.

osarusan

fizzypish wrote: »

28.8 is more than 16.
1.80 was the cost of a pack in Russia or something.

Wtf? OP said price in Oz is 14.54.

14.54 is clearly not more than 16 times 1.80 (which is 28.80).


For Australian cigarettes to cost 16 times what they cost in Russia (1.80), they'd have to cost 28.80.


EDIT: OP now edited to say '8 times' the amount.

Zillah

fizzypish wrote: »

28.8 is more than 16.
1.80 was the cost of a pack in Russia or something.

Oh my God just stop and think for a second.

He said more than 16 times. It is less than 16 times. Much less than sixteen times. It is actually almost exactly 8 times, which is less than 16 times.

You just failed your repeat exam in junior cert maths.

nelly17

I think the government want their cake and eat it with the ciggies, the 50c addition in the budget indicates this, they dont want to loose the significant excise to the coffers. If they did treatments would be freely available from the Health Services (Champex, Patches nicotine replacement etc). This, in the long run would save the Health Services millions but the Government wont bite the bullet on it and would rather eek up the price for an immediate monetary gain at a long term cost to the country.

anto9

How much from the traders in Moor Street ? What should I be paying for loose tobacco off them ?When I was into cigars and still living in Ireland I would take a flight to Belgium every few months to stock up .

CruelCoin

I'd want a proper study done on how much ciggarettes cost the enonomy through unproductive fag breaks / health system costs etc.

I would then set that as the minimum plus a 50% "you're an idiot" tax.

zoobizoo

Health warnings are pointless when it comes to trying to keep teens off them.

There needs to be a psychological message something along the lines of "smoking is stupid' or 'only idiots smoke'... (no offence to any smokers meant )

LDN_Irish

nelly17 wrote: »

). This, in the long run would save the Health Services millions but the Government wont bite the bullet on it and would rather eek up the price for an immediate monetary gain at a long term cost to the country.

It's not just an immediate monetary gain though. Cigarette tax is many times higher healh service expenditure on tobacco related disease so if your eye is on the money rather than health it makes much more sense for governments to rinse smokers whilst banking on them remaining smokers.

osarusan

LDN_Irish wrote: »

Cigarette tax is many times higher healh service expenditure on tobacco related disease.

Really? Many times? Where did you read that?

More, yes, but I'm pretty sure it's not many times.

Something like 1.9 billion in tax, and 1.2 billion in spending.

LDN_Irish

osarusan wrote: »

Really? Many times? Where did you read that?

More, yes, but I'm pretty sure it's not many times.

Something like 1.9 billion in tax, and 1.2 billion in spending.

Do you have a link for some Irish figures? The last time I had this conversation I could only find reliable stats for Britain which was something like direct tax take 12 billion and direct health care expenditure 3 billion.* I've just grabbed the first link I've found here and it wasn't what I was working off before which puts direct health care cost be teen 3 and 6 billion. So I'll retract "many times" from my previous post, but the point remains that smoking brings in more in revenue than it costs in health care spending in monetary terms.

https://fullfact.org/factchecks/does_smoking_cost_as_much_as_it_makes_for_the_treasury-29288

* I'd be surprised if your estimate above is correct for Ireland because it's so different to everything I've ever seen from Britain but it's still plausible.

** None of this even takes in to account the indirect costs. There's a lot of research that shows that smokers actually cost the health service less than non smokers when you take in to account the extra years non smokers have on average compared to smokers. These tend to be the most expensive years of a person's life to the exchequer. I'm not going to Google for a link here because it's not central to my point but it'd be easy to find things for and against if you're interested.

fizzypish

Zillah wrote: »

Oh my God just stop and think for a second.

He said more than 16 times. It is less than 16 times. Much less than sixteen times. It is actually almost exactly 8 times, which is less than 16 times.

You just failed your repeat exam in junior cert maths.

Been looking for a valid reason to hand my degree back and I think we have a winner.

petes

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

Meh, I don't smoke so it makes no odds to me. Jack them up to €20 a packet for all I care. I just hope they're too expensive for my kids to even think about picking them up, as well as them being smart enough to know better than to go near them in the first place

For the last couple of weeks I was getting the bus to work and I didn't see any of the kids smoking 'packs' of cigarettes! All smoking rollies. How much is a box of Amber Leaf now? €6?

KERSPLAT!

petes wrote: »

For the last couple of weeks I was getting the bus to work and I didn't see any of the kids smoking 'packs' of cigarettes! All smoking rollies. How much is a box of Amber Leaf now? €6?

Bump them all to €20!!

petes

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

Bump them all to €20!!

I'm not really in favour of that as I smoke

nelly17

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

Bump them all to €20!!

Would just fuel the black market more IMO

zoobizoo

nelly17 wrote: »

Would just fuel the black market more IMO

Only among the addicted...

the_syco

BrokenArrows wrote: »

They know for a fact that smoking causes cancer.
Any other product on the market which is even suspected of causing cancer is removed immediately.

Red meat causes cancer.

sonny.knowles

EUR 5 per biff.

rainbow kirby

As much as possible. Disgusting habit.

beertons

5.85 was enough. Plus, it brought in all the denominations in change in the machines.

sonny.knowles

beertons wrote: »

5.85 was enough. Plus, it brought in all the denominations in change.

5.88?

osarusan

LDN_Irish wrote: »

Do you have a link for some Irish figures? The last time I had this conversation I could only find reliable stats for Britain which was something like direct tax take 12 billion and direct health care expenditure 3 billion.* I've just grabbed the first link I've found here and it wasn't what I was working off before which puts direct health care cost be teen 3 and 6 billion. So I'll retract "many times" from my previous post, but the point remains that smoking brings in more in revenue than it costs in health care spending in monetary terms.

https://fullfact.org/factchecks/does_smoking_cost_as_much_as_it_makes_for_the_treasury-29288

* I'd be surprised if your estimate above is correct for Ireland because it's so different to everything I've ever seen from Britain but it's still plausible.

** None of this even takes in to account the indirect costs. There's a lot of research that shows that smokers actually cost the health service less than non smokers when you take in to account the extra years non smokers have on average compared to smokers. These tend to be the most expensive years of a person's life to the exchequer. I'm not going to Google for a link here because it's not central to my point but it'd be easy to find things for and against if you're interested.

It's a couple of years old:

The Government rakes in an estimated €2 billion a year in tax revenue from cigarettes but roughly the same amount is spent on treating illness caused by tobacco.

http://www.independent.ie/regionals/wicklowpeople/lifestyle/government-spends-2bn-tax-revenue-from-cigarettes-on-smokingrelated-illnesses-29083408.html


Anyway, I think one issue is whether further price rises simply push more people to illegal cigarettes to such an extent that it actually means less revenue.

beertons

sonny.knowles wrote: »

5.88?

Nobody wants the 1 and 2 cent coins.

sonny.knowles

sonny.knowles wrote: »

5.88?

Or 3.88

sonny.knowles

beertons wrote: »

Nobody wants the 1 and 2 cent coins.

I love them, dreading the rounding.

Sums...............

Magico Gonzalez

Zero sympathy for smokers. Let them pay through the nose or give up. Immature habit for simpletons.