Party pow-wow to stub fag ban

IT looks like there’ll be no smoke and no fire at Fianna Fáil’s pow-wow in Sligo tomorrow as the party’s chief anti-smoking ban braves will be on distant plains.

Despite the expectations of lobby groups who oppose the smoking ban that the contentious issue would be raised at the first meeting of Fianna Fáil TDs and senators in two months, Minister for Health Micheál Martin looks set to be smoking the peace pipe at the Sligo Park Hotel.

Fianna Fáil TD Noel Davern, who led the opposition to the smoking ban all Summer, will be missing from the parliamentary party gathering.

He travels to Eastern Europe tomorrow as part of an Oireachtas delegation visiting Croatia and Poland.

The absence of the spiritual smokey leader raises doubts over whether anyone will have the courage to stoke the flames in the debate as the party gathers for the first time since the issue really ignited.

Throughout the Summer, Mr Davern headed the campaign of opposition to the ban in the party, saying that up to 50 Dáil deputies are against the ban and that five ministers have expressed private doubts about the move. However, yesterday he insisted that he never intended to raise the issue at this point and will instead be bringing it up at the party’s first real parliamentary party meeting next month.

“I’ll do it in the second week in October. I think the proper place is at a parliamentary party meeting. Sligo is more about a think-in and information and the way things are,” he said.

Publicans have upped the ante in recent weeks in their bid to prevent the ban from being introduced across the board in January.

Delegations from the Vintners Federation of Ireland and the Licensed Vintners Federation have been stepping up their lobbying of Fianna Fáil TDs and senators ahead of the Sligo gathering. Yesterday, the Irish Hospitality Industry Alliance met with FF parliamentary party chairman Seamus Kirk in advance of the meeting where they believe the ban is likely to be discussed.

According to an IHIA spokesman, the group has been talking with a number of TDs and senators in recent days and has been calling for action to be taken by the parliamentary party.

“The general gist of what we are being told is it is more than likely going to come up,” the spokesman said.

Looks like that hope might be stubbed out.