merrion street

Health Minister James Reilly and Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan today highlighted tomorrow as the day cigarette packaging placed on the Irish market will have to display graphic photographs with a strong health warning. These images depic the negative health impacts associated with smoking.

Research and experience in other countries has shown that health warnings combined with coloured photographs can be an effective means of discouraging smoking and informing people about the health risks related to smoking.

Minister Reilly said:

Half, or 1 in 2, of all long-term smokers will die from smoking related diseases. This is a stark statistic. There is no doubt that if tobacco were discovered today, knwoing what we know about its lethal effects, it would not be a legal product.

I am committed to reducing the number of young people starting to smoke and those current smokers. If, by introducing these graphic images on cigarette packs, some people are shocking into considering how smoking impacts on them and their families then the warnings will have achieved their objective.

There are 14 images to go on cigarette packs which Ireland selected from the library of images developed by the European Commission.