A study showing Irish smokers die seven years earlier than non-smokers is a gross underestimate, a prominent respiratory consultant has said.
Mr Luke Clancy said the results of the study of half-a-million life insurance policyholders did not reflect international research findings that smoking generally takes up to 15 years off people's lives.
The study of policyholders with 11 leading life assurance companies found male smokers aged 40 and over are twice as likely to die within a given year as non-smokers.
Non-smokers of both sexes can expect to live seven years longer than their smoking counterparts, according to the research group, which was commissioned by the Society of Actuaries in Ireland and chaired by Mr Gareth Colgan, a UCD lecturer in statistics and actuarial studies.
Mr Clancy broadly welcomed the research. But he pointed to a variety of "holes" in the data which meant it underestimated the life expectancy of smokers in the general populace. These include the fact that people aged 65 and over were not surveyed, yet many people die of smoking-related diseases between the ages of 65 and 75.
The study - the first such research of the experience of Irish life assurance companies - investigated data for three years up to 1997. Mr Colgan said life expectancy for male smokers was 74, compared to 81 for male non-smokers. This compared with 78 for women smokers and 85 for women non-smokers.