The workplace smoking ban and the Government's plans to introduce new café-bar licences are expected to top the agenda at the annual conference of the Vintners' Federation of Ireland in Cork this week.

The Consumers' Association has blamed a 1.3% fall in bar sales on the price of drinks.

According to the Vintners' Federation of Ireland, turnover in the pub industry is down by an average of 25% across rural Ireland.

The Vintners' Federation of Ireland (VFI) is pleading with the Government for some form of relaxation of the smoking ban legislation and the 9pm watershed involving families, as reports from 6,000 members throughout the country confirm loss of business.

VINTNERS in Galway have voted to fully support a fellow publican who is mounting a legal challenge to the smoking ban.

Repak, the industry-funded used packaging compliance scheme, has slammed the Vintners' Federation of Ireland call on the Minister for the Environment to introduce a levy on non-returnable containers and packaging as unworkable and self-serving.

THE forbidden Good Friday drink can often be the sweetest pint of the year.

A GOVERNMENT-commissioned report has been unable to establish if individual pubs and restaurants will suffer financially as a result of the smoking ban.

Publicans in Kerry are considering defying the Government’s workplace smoking ban when it comes into force on March 29.

Owner-managed pubs with five employees or less should be exempt from the Government's proposed no-smoking ban, the Licensed Vintners' Association (LVA) and the Vintners' Federation of Ireland (VFI) claimed today.

In an editorial it was incorrectly stated that Justice Minister Michael McDowell faces "significant resistance from teh drinks trade" to a proposal to introduce a mandatory identity card for young people.