Health Minister James Reilly has said he will bring a memorandum to Government shortly to provide for the introduction of plain packaging on tobacco products.

The Minister said under the proposal, cigarette packets would no longer have branded logos on them but would contain the graphic images and health warnings that already exist, with a small area of the packet allowed for the brnd name.

The Minister said he was concerned that attractive cigarette packaging had been shown to be a major factor in children taking up smoking.

Australia has recently passed legislation to ban logos from cigarette packages and to make plain packaging mandatory.

Dr Reilly was speaking at the launch of the report 'Healthy Ireland', a Government framework for action to improve people's health and well-being.

The report contains 64 recommendations aimed at initiating action between Government departments, State agencies and other bodies targeted at tackling issues such as obesity, smoking, cancer and alcohol abuse.