Around 22 percent of Irish people are still smoking.

The Government's launched the annual Tobacco Free Ireland report today which looks at what's being done to help the country be tobacco free by 2025.

The aim is to have a smoking rate of only 5 per cent by 2025, which would effectively mean Ireland is smoke-free.

Nicole Gernon reports:

The latest initiative is standardised packaging, which came into force at the end of September making us the first EU country to do this.

32,000 people have stopped smoking in the past year and the Government says the aim with the standardised packaging is to make the health warnings stand out more.

Over 5 thousand people die every year from smoking related diseases in Ireland, while around €500 million euro is pumped into treating these diseases.

Any old packaging on the market will be phased out within the year.