Ireland's smoking ban is being blamed for plummeting bar sales within a year of its introduction, but the government insists the smoke-free policy will deliver a big health dividend as more people quit.
Sales in the country's famous pubs are down 6.3 percent in the last year, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office this week, as customers desert pubs with their new healthy smoke-free atmosphere.
But the decline of the pub -- for long the center of much of Irish social life -- may also be part of a fundamental shift in lifestyle as much caused by rising prices, a tougher policy on drunk driving and a shift to greater home entertaining.
The health minister in charge of the ban, Sean Power, is overseeing a new advertising campaign "Smoke-free is working -- let's keep it that way" to ensure complacency doesn't creep in and high compliance with the ban is maintained.
Introduced on March 29, the ban outlaws smoking in a range of public venues including pubs, restaurants and even company cars.
"We are getting compliance in the high 90s [percent]," Power said. "Compliance has worked out exceptionally well despite all the reservations, concerns and doubts before the ban took effect."
Power, a former publican who sold his business two years ago in his Kildare constituency on the outskirts of Dublin, said he was not surprised by the widespread observance of the ban.
"In general people are law-abiding. This was a measure that, by and large, the people were going to police themselves. Smokers who decided to obey the law weren't going to be too happy to see other people flouting it underneath their noses," he said.
"The ban has made people very, very conscious of the health dangers. A sizeable number of people are giving up smoking altogether. We have set up a special telephone smoking quit-line to help people and the figures from it are very encouraging," he said.
As a former pub owner, Power said he had been strongly lobbied by the trade.
"That was natural enough. They had invested their money in a pub. But we have to look at the greater good, the bigger picture, and that is what we did," Power said.
Power said the small numbers of pubs breaching the ban are "paying the price in court" and he expects to see less and less defiance.
This week, a publican in the border county of Cavan became the first to be hit for the maximum 3,000 euro (US$3,900) penalty and an additional 1,000 euros in costs.
Pat Barry of Diageo Ireland, which brews Ireland's favorite beer, Guinness, said sales of the "black stuff" were down 6 percent overall in the year to June but the volume of off-license sales for consumption at home had risen.
He believes there are bigger underlying social shifts in society affecting the drinks industry.
A combination of changes -- demographics, tougher drink-driving laws, the increase in working wives, higher mortgage repayments as house prices rise and more entertaining at home -- are all affecting lifestyles in recently prosperous Ireland.
"There is no doubt about it, the business is changing but the ban is also having quite a significant adverse impact. Some pubs have been affected worse than others, particularly the more traditional ones that don't serve food," Barry said.
"Up until now, people have been able to go outdoors and have their smoke but it is only from now on through the winter that we will begin to see if people are willing to do that in bad weather," he said.
A survey for the Licensed Vintners Association (LVA), representing 750 pubs in Dublin, said compliance was excellent in the capital but sales are down by 16 percent.
It claims 2,000 full and part-time jobs are being lost in the Dublin pub trade alone.
LVA chief executive Donall O'Keeffe said it confirmed the "harsh reality of the economic impact of the ban."
"The majority of Dublin publicans have described the current business climate as being very unfavorable -- without a doubt, the smoking ban has compounded this state of affairs," he said.
Taiwan’s English education system is being pulled apart by three opposing forces. Bilingual Nation 2030 pulls students toward English and global communication. Artificial Intelligence (AI) readiness pulls them toward digital judgment, verification and AI-mediated work. But Taiwan’s old exam culture pulls them back toward memorization, grammar drills, timed reading and correct answers. If the education system keeps using old exams to define success, it risks producing graduates who are neither genuinely bilingual nor genuinely AI-ready, but trained for tasks machines can already perform. The first force is Bilingual Nation 2030. Launched in 2018, the policy aimed to “help Taiwan’s workforce connect
It seems every few days one bumps into one of those “real man” comments in which Taiwan is urged to “face reality” or similar, and “make a deal,” with the speaker implying that soon it will be too late. “Deal” advocates always present themselves as having a superior grip on reality, and the manly ability to make the “hard choice.” Their testosterone-laden language often echoes that of Taiwan sellout advocates. Note that such commentary always specifies a process (“make a deal, work with, make progress”), never the end state of what occupation by a violent authoritarian colonialist state will entail. In
There are shadowy cabals plotting to sell out Taiwan to be annexed by China, by invasion if necessary. Fortunately, they are buffoons. In 2019, former Bamboo Union gangster and founder of the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), Chang An-le (張安樂, colorfully known as “White Wolf”), led a protest at the Legislative Yuan against comments made by then-premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) that in the event of an attack by China, he would never surrender, but would protect the nation by fighting to the end, even if he only had a broom. Chang had party members bring a wooden casket that they
June 1 to June 7 "If all Taiwanese were as afraid of dying as you, then what would happen?” Physician Shih Chiang-nan (施江南) reportedly said this to his wife Chen Chiao-tung (陳焦桐) after she urged him to stop intervening on behalf of Taiwanese soldiers stranded overseas after serving in the Japanese Army during World War II. Shih had clashed with high-ranking officials over the issue, engaged in several heated arguments with Taiwan governor-general Chen Yi (陳儀) and allegedly shouted at general Ko Yuan-fen (柯遠芬), chief of staff of the Taiwan Garrison Command, over
RSS