Criminal gangs are earning profits equal to almost a thousand times the fines imposed on smugglers by the courts, according to the tobacco industry.

The Managing Director of Ireland's biggest cigarette company is insisting that plain packaging will not lead to a drop in the number of smokers in Ireland.

THE tobacco industry’s unprecedented visit to Taoiseach Enda Kenny and his ministers Michael Noonan and Alan Shatter would appear to have been a failure.

The Health Minister James Reilly has revealed his father and brother died from smoking-related illness as Ireland becomes only the second country to clamp down on tobacco marketing.

Ireland is set to become the second country in the world to introduce plain pack cigarettes, it emerged today.