The Government's plan to ban smoking in pubs and restaurants from New Year's Day could cost 65,000 jobs, a newly formed alliance of hotels, pubs, restaurants and guesthouses has warned.
The Irish Hospitality Industry Alliance, which claims 3,500 members, urged the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, to accept a compromise along the lines already sought by some Fianna Fáil TDs.
On behalf of the alliance, Mr Finbar Murphy said: "We want to protect employment in our sector while also respecting what the Minister for Health wants to achieve. We believe this can be done through dialogue."
A full list of the IHIA membership is not available, but Mr Murphy said it had been formed in Munster and would hold meetings throughout Connacht and Leinster in coming weeks.
An IHIA delegation will travel to New York this week for meetings with industry colleagues, who claim that business has been cut by 30 per cent since the smoking ban was introduced there in April.
Mr Murphy claimed 65,000 people could lose their jobs in pubs and restaurants if the ban went ahead here. "The IHIA believes the integrity of the ban can be maintained but there still can be compromise," he said. "We want to achieve is to balance the needs of our smoking and non-smoking customers and those of our employees. We believe this can be done via a variety of means based on the particular nature of the individual business.
"Businesses that do the majority of trade through take-aways may not be badly affected, while other businesses may be destroyed, including small local and country pubs.
"We do not believe that the Government set out to intervene in the sector and to select winners and losers in the hospitality industry or to pit one segment of the industry against another."
Premises could be forced to sign up to better air quality standards, " Mr Murphy said. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee had shown that proper ventilation could cut smoke levels to the same as those enjoyed by premises where smoking was barred, he said.
"We would also sign up to increases in the size of no-smoking sections and to designated smoking areas. We would also be willing to have no smoking at counters in public houses and where food is being served in such establishments.
"As participants in social partnership," Mr Murphy continued, "the hospitality industry should be treated in the same way as other industries and should have the opportunity to have talks with the Government on such a ground-breaking change."
Meanwhile yesterday it emerged that 86 per cent of people surveyed in a TNS-MRBI poll believe the Government's planned ban on smoking in pubs and restaurants will be difficult to enforce. The survey also found that 25 per cent did not know the law banning smoking came into effect on January 1st.
A thousand adults around the State were interviewed by phone as part of TNS-MRBI'S Omnibus PhoneBus survey, conducted for Retail Intelligence, a weekly e- mail bulletin issued by the Checkout magazine group.
Fifty-three per cent said the law would be "very difficult" to enforce while a further 33 per cent said it would be "quite difficult". Just 10 per cent believed it would be either "quite easy" or "very easy" to enforce.
Mr Joe Browne, president of the Vintners Federation, said a similar ban in British Columbia in Canada was dropped after days. The laws were "nonsensical" and the survey showed "our citizens know it is unworkable and publicans can't police it".
