Cigarette giant Japan Tobacco International (JTI) has threatened to take legal action against the Irish government if it doesn't stop work over plain packaging legislation for cigarettes.
JTI Ireland, one of the biggest producers of cigarettes, owns the Benson and Hedges and Silk Cut brands. The company's Geneva-based parent company the Japan Tobacco Group has a market capitalisation of around €55bn.
The Irish government committed in 2013 to become the first country in the European Union to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes.
The British government also announced plans to implement a similar law before May. The vote is in fact slated for this March.
The basic aim of the legislation is to remove the space for tobacco advertising which might help in reducing the incidence of smoking and diminishing the industry's power to recruit new smokers.
JTI announced its decision in the wake of the Dáil health subcommittee debate to decide on measures to ban branded designs on tobacco packaging.
The firm issued the legal threat a week ago via solicitors Arthur Cox and sent it to ministers James Reilly and Leo Varadkar which was copied to Taoiseach Enda Kenny.
In its letter cited in The Irish Times, the firm said that the State has no right to introduce mandatory packaging restrictions that are stricter than those necessary to transpose the new EU directive on tobacco into national law.
The Public Health (Standardised Packaging of Tobacco) Bill had been introduced by Reilly last year when he was minister for health.
Currently the Minister for Children, Reilly was quoted by the Journal.ie as saying: ""The [EU] Tobacco Directive is quite clear, it won't become operable until May 2016 and we're going to allow a wash out period for the products that are already in place. So, it's more likely to be May 2017."
Various independent studies recently have confirmed that plain packaging deters non-smokers from taking up the habit and encourages smokers to cut down.
