Ireland is now ranked second among 27 European countries for tobacco control, according to a report out today.
In 2005 it was in first place but slipped into second place, behind the UK, last year when the survey was conducted.
All countries were scored across a number of criteria including price, public place smoking bans, public information campaign spending, advertising bans, health warning and smoking cessation treatment programmes.
Prof Luke Clancy, a founder of Ash Ireland and director general of the Tobacco Free Research Institute, said the reason Ireland's ranking had slipped was because it had no tobacco price rise in 2005 and as a result tobacco prices in the UK were higher for a period than they were in the Republic.
In addition he said our smoking cessation programmes are not as good as in the UK, where overall smoking prevalence rates are now lower than they are here.
Latest figures indicate the overall smoking prevalence rate among Irish adults is 29 per cent.
Prof Clancy said while Ireland had achieved a good result overall in its European ranking there was no room for complacency. There was still a great deal more work to be done to denormalise smoking, particularly
among young people, he said.
Meanwhile a study of carbon monoxide levels in the breath of 340,000 people across Europe, including more than 4,000 smokers and non smokers in Ireland, has found levels among Irish women smokers were slightly
higher than the European average and among Irish men were slightly lower then the European average.
Among Irish women smokers the levels were at 15.2 parts per million exhaled compared to the European average of 15.0 and for Irish men smokers it was at 16.7 compared to the European average of 17.8.
Around 8.5 parts per million is regarded as a safe level of carbon monoxide in the environment for people living in urban areas.
Across the EU there has been a 28 per cent decrease in carbon monoxide levels in exhaled breath among non smokers since the beginning of 2006, largely due to the imposition of smoking bans.
Carbon monoxide is a colourless, odourless gas which is extremely toxic and is inhaled when cigarettes and other tobacco products are smoked. It is also produced by vehicle exhausts.
Some 7,000 people die in Ireland each year from smoking related diseases.