Ireland's Pioneering
Smoking Ban Soon to Start

Ireland is set to stamp out smoking in bars and restaurants in the biggest such crackdown yet seen in Europe but one that has angered the owners of some of the country's renowned pubs.

The ban is being viewed a test case for the rest of the European Union and comes in the wake of similar campaigns in several U.S. cities including New York.

From midnight Sunday, it will be illegal to smoke in virtually all workplaces, closed public spaces and on public transport, with fines of up to $3,825 for transgressors.

The government says the ban will help save some of the 7,000 lives lost to smoking-related diseases in Ireland each year and will, for the first time, protect the country's entire workforce from passive smoking.

But critics say it will diminish Ireland's famous pub culture, drive tourists from the Emerald Isle and cost hundreds of jobs in the catering, entertainment and tobacco industries.

Above all, they say, it will turn publicans into policemen, forcing them to confront defiant smokers who, perhaps emboldened by drink, refuse to heed the "no smoking" signs plastered across the walls of their pubs.

"We're deeply disappointed that... the government insists on railroading this ban through in its current form," said the Vintners' Federation of Ireland (VFI), which represents some 6,000 publicans across the country.

A BLUEPRINT FOR EUROPE

The ban, driven into law by Health Minister Micheal Martin, has wide public support. A recent survey by pollsters TNS shows that twice as many people say they are more likely to visit a smoke-free pub than a pub where smoking is allowed.

Governments across Europe are looking to it as a test case, and the EU's health commissioner David Byrne says he would like to see the experiment in his homeland mirrored across the bloc.

Non-EU Norway is introducing a similar ban from June 1.

But other countries favor a more conciliatory approach, coaxing employers into providing smoking areas on their premises rather than forcing them to ban it.

"We prefer to encourage voluntary agreements rather than imposing laws," Danish health ministry official Lene Brondum Jensen told Reuters in Copenhagen.

"We think there is a greater possibility that people will abide by something if they succumb to it voluntarily rather than being forced to do something."

Ireland estimates it spends one billion euros a year treating its population of just under four million from the effects of tobacco.

IRELAND LEADS THE WAY

It is ironic that Ireland, not known for its healthy lifestyle, is leading the rest of Europe in banning smoking.

The Irish are among the region's heaviest drinkers and, thanks in part to a high-cholesterol diet, have one of the bloc's highest incidences of heart disease.

For some in Ireland, a cigarette is as much a part of the pub experience as lively banter and a pint of Guinness. It is all part of what the Irish call "the craic" (the fun).

But reformers say it is time to move on.

Michael O'Shea, Chief Executive of the Irish Heart Foundation, says he hopes the ban will herald a new era for Irish society -- "an era when health is set as a priority over other interests."

Reference Source 89

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