Smoke ban report ‘seriously deficient’

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

While its authors' say international studies show a ban will not affect the hospitality sector as a whole, they admit it is impossible to predict the effect of the ban on individual premises. They also admit the studies which say it's unlikely to affect the hospitality sector as a whole are "from an economist's perspective ... seriously deficient".

"The most that can be said is that the case for and against a decline in sales remains open," said authors, independent economists Joe Durkan and Moore McDowell, of University College Dublin.