Two youth groups from Cork have taken top awards at the Irish Cancer Society’s X-HALE Film Festival, an annual event designed to combat smoking among young people.

The percentage of school-aged children smoking in Ireland has almost halved since 1998 and the likelihood is that the country will be effectively smoke-free by 2025.

Only one in ten young people in Ireland is now a smoker, according to recent data from the Health Behaviour in School Aged Children report.