€20 pack-price proposal in Ireland

A leading tobacco control campaigner in Ireland is calling for the price of a pack of cigarettes to be almost doubled in an attempt to force people to quit smoking, according to a story in The Irish Mirror.

The smoking cessation therapist Steve Wrenn – a former city councillor who successfully campaigned for a tobacco smoking ban in Dublin’s public playgrounds – said a “significant” rise in the price of tobacco products was needed.

He was said to have told the Mirror that the government should increase the price of cigarettes by 90.5 percent: from a current average of €10.50 a pack to €20 a pack.

However, he said the tax rise would be successful only if it were backed up with significant state investment in helping smokers quit; with new walk-in clinics located in every county.

He said these measures were needed to ensure that the government met its own policy target of reducing the smoking prevalence rate from the current 19 percent of the population to less than just five percent by 2025.

Wrenn has called for the state to hire a ‘tobacco tzar’ to lead the way in ensuring smoking was further ‘de-normalised’ after what he saw as the success of the workplace smoking ban and the recent ban on smoking in cars carrying children.