Tánaiste Micheál Martin and Health Minister Stephen Donnelly have said that they would not rule out Ireland introducing health warnings on individual cigarettes.
Politicians in Scotland who are currently reforming the country’s tobacco legislation are being lobbied by anti-smoking groups to introduce the warnings.
Canada has announced that it will place warnings about the dangers of smoking from August 1.
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New packaging will feature a warning on each cigarette with phrases like: "Cigarettes cause cancer" and "Poison in every puff".
Asked by the Irish Mirror about whether he would do something similar, Minister Donnelly said that he would not rule it out.
He explained: “We know the Canadians are doing so, so we're gonna stay engaged with our Canadian counterparts to see what kind of an impact it has.
“I wouldn't rule anything out.
“Ireland has been seen as a leader in terms of tackling smoking and reducing rates of smoking.
“Anything that we can do to reduce the smoking in the country, we will absolutely keep an open mind to. I’d be very, very interested to see the initial reports back from Canada to see what kind of impact it's having.”
The Tánaiste, who was responsible for Ireland introducing the smoking ban, said that anything that decreases the number of people smoking would be welcome.
He added that the Government is working on legislating vapes following moves by Cabinet last week to ban the sales to under 18s.
“I welcome any initiative that would work to reduce the consumption of cigarettes and also to highlight to people the very damaging health impact of cigarettes on people,” Mr Martin said.
“I think Ireland has made very significant progress over 20 odd years.
“But I think we have to continue that focus and that pressure to achieve our goals in terms of reducing smoking down to about 5% of the population if not lower.
“But vaping is something that we're particularly concerned about.”
Elsewhere, Minister Donnelly confirmed that he expects another overspend in the Department of Health for the second quarter of 2023.
Cabinet heard on Thursday that there had been an overspend of €187m for the first quarter of the year.
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