Ireland celebrates first smoke-free year

Ireland can breathe a smoke-free sigh of relief today when it marks the first anniversary of a pioneering ban on smoking, the success of which has inspired similar moves elsewhere.

The ban on smoking in pubs, restaurants and workplaces, introduced on March 29, 2004, had been expected to meet with widespread resistance in a country where the pub culture of a drink and a smoke were considered part of its lifeblood.

Instead, the sight of smokers puffing away outside pub doors has become familiar across Ireland, and the only haze wafting through bars these days comes from having one drink too many.

Similar laws had been introduced in cities and states like New York and California, but Ireland was the first country to introduce a nationwide ban. Malta, Norway and Italy have since followed suit.

"It's healthier," said bartender and non-smoker Paddy Martin, pouring pints at Foley's Bar, close to the Irish parliament buildings in Dublin. "I feel better when I go home."

Anti-smoking lobby group ASH reckons tobacco kills six times as many people in Ireland as road accidents, work accidents, drugs, murder, suicide and AIDs combined, and is a massive drain on health resources.

Prof. Luke Clancy, chairman of ASH's Irish branch, has said the ban could become the "health initiative of the century".

But not everyone has welcomed it. Some pub owners and drinks firms blame the ban for a drop-off in sales - bar revenues fell 6.3 per cent in the first nine months of 2004. Cigarette sales dropped about 18 per cent last year compared to a 10 per cent fall the previous year.

The subdued atmosphere in Foley's Bar - where only a handful of people were drinking quietly on Saturday night in a scene repeated in many other pubs outside Dublin's main tourist spots - seemed to back the claims.

But the decline of the Irish pub has more to do with high prices and lifestyle changes than the smoking ban, locals say.

"It's the smoke and the drink," said Mr Martin, handing over a half-pint of Guinness, which at €2.60 is one euro more expensive than buying a similar size can in an off-licence.

Alcoholic beverages - some 82 per cent above the eurozone average - cost more in Ireland than in any other European Union country, according to figures from Eurostat published last year.

The newly affluent Irish, enjoying the fruits of Ireland's Celtic Tiger boom in the late 1990s, increasingly choose a glass of wine in their own home over a pub-poured beer.

But for those smokers and drinkers who venture out for a taste of Ireland's famed "craic" (fun), the smoking ban can have some benefits.

"I've met more people standing outside and having a cig," said Sue Taylor, visiting Dublin from Yorkshire in England, standing outside a pub in the popular Temple Bar area.

"But I'd be barred from every pub in Britain if they introduced it because I wouldn't do it."

The success of Ireland's pioneering ban on smoking has inspired similar moves elsewhere.

2004 * March - Ireland imposes a nationwide ban on smoking in all workplaces, including pubs, bars and restaurants.

* May - India bans smoking in public places, tobacco advertising in media and sales to minors, after statistics showed smoking killed 2,200 people in India a day.

* June - Norway extends a ban on workplace smoking to bars and restaurants.

* October - Hong Kong announces plans to extend a ban on smoking to bars, restaurants and offices.

- Malta, bans smoking in all public places larger than 60 square metres. This will be extended to all public places irrespective of size from Friday.

* November - Scotland announces plans to ban smoking in enclosed public spaces by early next year. The British government announces plans for a public smoking ban across England and Wales from next year. The ban will cover all enclosed public places and workplaces, restaurants, and pubs and bars serving food.

- Russia's upper house of parliament approves a bill to restrict smoking in public places. The ban covers public transport and the workplace, and prevents the sale of tobacco in health, sports and cultural centres or near schools.

* December - New Zealand extends a 1990 ban on smoking in offices, shops and public buildings to pubs, clubs, restaurants, and school grounds.

- The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan bans smoking in public and prohibits tobacco sales, the first country in the world to do so.

2005: * January - Italy bans smoking in enclosed public spaces.

* February - Cuba bans smoking in offices, stores, theatres, buses and taxis, schools, sports facilities and air-conditioned public areas.

* March - Parliament in Bangladesh passes a law implementing a smoking ban in places such as schools, offices, libraries, hospitals and airports. It also prohibits advertisement of tobacco products in cinemas, newspapers or on television.