Some of America’s largest business organisations have urged the Taoiseach to rethink plans to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products.
Such a move, which was agreed by the cabinet in May, would mandate the “destruction of legitimate and legally sanctioned trademark protection and branding”, the heads of the organisations warned in a letter.
The six organisations involved are the US Chamber of Commerce, the Emergency Committee for American Trade, the National Association of Manufacturers, the United States Council for International Business, the National Foreign Trade Council and the Transatlantic Business Council.
Ireland will become the second country in the world after Australia to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products if the measures proposed by Minister for Health James Reilly are implemented.
The letter, which was sent shortly after Dr Reilly secured cabinet agreement for plain packaging, expresses “serious concern” about the implications for intellectual property rights and warns it could impact on a proposed new trade agreement between the US and the EU.
It further states that there is “no clarity that plain packaging is effective in accomplishing the stated goal”, while “a false and damaging choice is being presented when effective alternatives exist” and it will lead to more illicit trade in tobacco.
It concludes: “We strongly urge you to review the way forward following the statement from the Minister of Health.”
The chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Damien English said he too had received a copy of a letter.
Speaking at the launch yesterday of a report into the problem of tobacco smuggling, Mr English said the issue of plain packaging “needs to be teased out a lot more” before it is implemented.
He said it could increase tobacco smuggling and make it easier to counterfeit cigarette packets.
Source: Ronan McGreevy, Irish Times, 24/07/2013
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