Smoking ban - Success allows no room for complacency

DESPITE all the scaremongering of publicans, the smoking ban has proved an outstanding success.

Indeed, the anti-smoking group Ash goes so far as to describe it as the “health initiative of the century”. That will be music to the ears of beleaguered former Health Minister Micheál Martin.

Not only are pubs and clubs more pleasant places to patronise, of greater significance is that conditions for workers has improved dramatically, according to a study showing the level of poisonous carbon monoxide in their systems has fallen dramatically.