Plain packaging 'doesn't affect smoking numbers', says cigarette maker

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.

It follows the release of an Australian study showing that the number of calls to a quitting helpline went up once their details were displayed on otherwise plain cigarette packets.

The Department of Health is planning to bring in the initiative here to cut the number of people lighting up.

John Freda is MD at JTI Ireland, which sells half of all cigarettes each year in this country, and he says the figures are not enough to prove plain packaging works.