HSE launch anti-smoking campaign
A new, hard-hitting advertising campaign will be broadcast from today to encourage people to quit smoking which is the single biggest cause of illness, disability and death in Ireland.
There are currently around a million people here who smoke.
Some 5,500 people are dying each year as a result of tobacco-related diseases.
The HSE said it is using personal stories to get the message across that one in every two smokers will die from the habit.
Pauline Bell, a mother of two from Wexford whose husband George died three years ago, said it is not just the lives of smokers that are impacted on by the consequences of the habit.
She said: "You don't realise the devastation that occurs afterwards.
"It might not be straight away; when everything settles down and people kind of stand back, when you look at your life and you just realise (that) he is not coming home.
"They should be standing beside their dad; getting married or christening or something. It is hard; very, very hard."
