Drop in cigarette sales in Ireland is due to the following factors EXCEPT______.

Ireland’s smoking ban came in at the end of March this year and its impact is being demonstrated. Figures from Gallaher, the manufacturer of big, well known brands, and which holds a fifty percent market share in Ireland, show it sold two hundred and sixty million fewer cigarettes between January and June. Total sales in the country shrank by around seven and a half percent. The company blames duty increases as well as the effect of the soling ban. The Irish health minister Michael Martin welcomed the drop in sales, saying that the less people smoke, the better it is for the nation’s health. He hopes that the ban will encourage more smokers to either give up, or to smoke less. A possible downside, though, for the Irish government is that tax revenue from tobacco sales is predicted to fall by almost one hundred million dollars this year.