Irish Republic to Ban Smoking in Pubs

Smoke gets in your eyes? Not for much longer, it seems, if you drink in any pub in the Irish Republic, where the health minister, Micheal Martin, wants to stub out cigarettes, from January 1 next year.

Publicans grumbled but employees cheered as Mr Martin announced plans to outlaw tobacco in bars, restaurants, hotels, and all other workplaces, after a report on passive smoking.

The ban will bring Ireland into line with efforts to clamp down on smoking in other EU countries, but goes further than previous measures considered by the government.

The study, by the office of tobacco control and the health and safety authority, found non-smoking workers regularly exposed to smokers faced a 30% greater risk of heart disease and their risk of developing lung cancer was 90 times that of cancer from asbestos in buildings.

Mr Martin said: "Hospitality workers and bar workers in particular are very vulnerable to cancer, heart disease and other illnesses as a result of environmental passive smoke."

John Douglas, general secretary of the bar workers' union, Mandate, said: "People don't smoke on buses any more, people don't smoke in public offices, so it is workable, even if it takes some attitudinal change on behalf of the customers."

But the Irish Vintners Federation said a total ban would be "unworkable, untenable and unenforceable" and called for a more "realistic solution".