The Government was warned today plans to impose a steep increase in the price of cigarettes in next week's Budget could hit the worse off.
The smoking-cost-hike proposal emerged last night when intense speculation indicated Finance Minister Mr Charlie McCreevy would put up a packet of 20 by 79p, or €1. That would raise the price to almost £4.80 or € 6 after next Wednesday's budget.
The move would probably force up the Irish inflation rate by one percentage point, from its present level of 3.8 per cent - one of the highest in the EU - but raise £200 million for spending on health.
Since his appointment after the 1997 general election, Mr McCreevy has raised the price of a packet of 20 cigarettes by 65p, including a 50p increase two years ago that raised £132 million.
Today, though, a trade union leader said a new rise in price-rise levels could affect lower earners as national wage rates were based on low inflation.
SIPTU general secretary Mr John McDonnell said: "We do of course support attempts to cut down smoking. But the fact of the matter is that people who do smoke are on low earnings, and that situation will continue for some time yet.
"This plan will hit people like that, rather than those in the middle- and higher-income brackets".
Mr McDonnell said the possibility of taking cigarette prices out of the consumer price index - the inflation rate - was "something that would have to be examined".
PA