The European Court of Justice has cleared the way for plain packaging laws for tobacco products in Ireland.

It's made a preliminary ruling this morning against tobacco giants Philip Morris and British American Tobacco.

They'd taken proceedings to the ECJ over an EU directive which would see health warnings on two thirds of tobacco packaging.

The Children's Minister James Reilly wants to go one step further in Ireland and ban tobacco branding on packets altogether.

In it's ruling this morning, the ECJ said the new EU tobacco directive of 2014 is valid.