Consumption of tobacco increases the risk of morbidity and mortality from a wide range of illnesses. These include cancers, diseases of the heart and circulatory system, and respiratory conditions. As these are not notifiable diseases, information on the number of visits to general practitioners is not available. Data on hospital discharges are collected through the hospital in-patient inquiry system which covers all publicly funded acute hospitals and mortality data are collected by the Central Statistics Office. Table 1 below sets out statistics for 1998 showing the number of hospital discharges for conditions regarded as smoking related. The number of deaths for the same conditions are provided in table 2 for the years 1994 to 1998. Caution should be exercised in the interpretation of these figures since they include all hospitalisations and deaths from the specified illnesses irrespective of whether or not they were due to smoking.