In the meantime, you may be interested in a 10 minute piece on the Irish smoking ban from the BBC World Service which you can listen to here. You see, the BBC has told the world that Ireland's ban was a great success because they found a former opponent whose pub is still in business. So that's all right then.
He's one of the lucky ones, though, because there were 9,964 licensed pubs in Ireland 2004 when the ban arrived, but only 7,509 - and falling - eight years later in 2012 according to the FT. Or, as one publican described it ...
Landlord Liam Fitzpatrick, who began working in the pub from the age of 14, says there has been a cultural shift in Ireland over the past decade with people drinking at home rather than in the pub.Well, with supermarket booze still being as cheap as it has always been, the cultural shift has been out of pubs and into a place where rules based on junk science don't place an obstacle in front of enjoyment and relaxation. What else would one expect?
The BBC reporter, however, didn't think it was worth mentioning that over a quarter of Ireland's pub stock has been extinguished since the oh-so-wonderful smoke-free experiment in 2004. And there we were thinking that the BBC is a world-renowned source of agenda-free news, eh?
