TDs won’t back down on plain packaging

Politicians have insisted Ireland will not be “bullied” into cancelling plans to impose plain cigarette packaging by May 2017, despite a multi-million euro legal threat from one of the world’s largest tobacco firms to scrap the bill by Friday.

TDs across the political divide said they will not be “brow beaten” by “external forces” following a warning from JTI Ireland. In a show of strength, they pledged to back future plans to strictly limit the sale of e-cigarettes in order to prevent the “enslavement” of a new generation of smokers.

The high-profile stand-off surrounds the long-term plan by Children’s Minister Dr James Reilly to introduce, by May 2017, plain packaging on cigarette packages, a euphemism for graphic images showing what happens to life-long smokers,