An alliance of publicans, hoteliers and restaurant-owners yesterday called on employers to continue lobbying their TDs and senators as part of a campaign for a compromise over the Minister for Health's planned smoking ban in the workplace.
The Irish Hospitality Industry Alliance, which met in Galway yesterday as part of a series of regional meetings aimed at highlighting the impact of the ban, said support was already building for compromise measures.
The IHIA chairman, Mr Finbar Murphy, said: "We are calling on people to lobby everyone, their TDs, councillors and senators, and let them know what the consequence of a ban will be."
He said a grassroots lobbying campaign had already prompted a number of deputies to express publicly their support for a compromise. The campaign would continue until the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting in September. A number of backbench TDs are expected to call for a motion in support of compromise measures at the meeting.
Publicans attending yesterday's gathering expressed anger at the manner in which the Government plans to impose the ban immediately and insisted it would be impossible to police.
Mr Jack Kinnevey, who owns Kinnevey's Bar in Rosscahil, Co Galway, said rural publicans would be unable to afford proposed fines of up to €1,600.
"How do you say to a customer of over 60 years, 'Sorry, you're not allowed to smoke'? No one can afford that kind of money. You might as well shut down.
"Asking people to go out and smoke is fine in places like California, but you can't do it here. We don't have the weather for it," he said.
Mr Patrick Sammon, who owns the Angler's Rest, Renvyle, Co Galway, said the ban would be impossible for pub workers to enforce.
"If someone goes into a toilet to smoke, how can you do anything about that? It should be up to the law enforcers to implement it, not the publicans," he said.
Mr Michael Foley, owner of the Connemara pub, Teach an Daingean, said pubs did not have the staff to implement the law.
The IHIA has also warned of the cost implications, such as the installation of smoke-detectors connected to a computer which would have to be available for inspection.
Mr Ronnie Greany, who experimented by designating An Tobar pub on Galway's Shop Street as non-smoking in 1998, also warned the ban would have a severe impact on business. "We had to abandon it after 18 weeks because it wasn't working," he said.
