Ireland: how the battle against the smoking ban was lost

My biggest regret as director of Forest was our failure to launch a campaign in Ireland sooner than we did.

In 2002 the threat of a public smoking ban in Ireland was clear yet few people took it seriously. It won't happen, I was told. Or, if it does, the Irish will ignore it.

This was followed by a warning: don't interfere in Ireland. They won't like the English telling them what to do.

Did they think I was stupid? I grew up in Scotland so I am well aware of the sensitivities.

Anyway, in 2001, in response to devolution, we had launched a new campaign – Scottish Forest – with a Scottish spokesman, Charles McLean. It was a short-lived project but the launch was a huge success, attracting an enormous amount of media coverage.

I was convinced we could achieve the same level of interest in Ireland. Instead we were forced to watch helplessly as others tried unsuccessfully to fight the ban.

The vintners spoke out but they were an uncoordinated lot, with one organisation representing the rural pubs and another representing Dublin-based pubs and bars.

It didn't help that they had almost no popular support.

In 2003 Forest was invited to take part in a debate at University College Dublin. It was more Comedy Store than Oxford Union but I discovered real anger towards the vintners.

Publicans were blamed for the high price of beer and there was resentment that so many members of parliament were publicans or ex-publicans.

The smoking ban, it was suggested, was an opportunity to give them a bloody good kicking.

Something else struck me. Unlike the UK, where a lot of publicans had spent good money improving ventilation or introducing no smoking areas so there more choice for non-smokers, the pub industry in Ireland had been slow to act and had done little to improve air quality or cater for non-smokers who didn't want to socialise in a smoking environment.

Another problem - shared with the UK - was that most smokers only woke up to the ban after legislation was introduced, or the moment it was enforced, by which time it was far too late.

In 2004, after the ban was introduced in Ireland, Forest was approached by a Waterford based group called SAD Ireland (aka Smokers Against Discrimination).

I met the chap behind it. He took me on a tour of Waterford pubs and showed me bars that had been forced to reduce their opening hours because elderly lunchtime customers in particular were staying away.

The old codgers who would meet on a Tuesday to smoke their pipes and play bridge in the pub had effectively been ostracised.

But they represented Old Ireland and in 2004 that was sneered at by the metropolitan elite. In many ways Ireland's smoking ban was a signal to the world: look how modern and clean living we are!

In Cork there was another group that called itself ESAD (European Smokers Against Discrimination). Again, there were only one or two people behind it and like SAD Ireland it never really got off the the ground.

Interestingly, one of them was John Mallon, now spokesman for Forest Eireann. When he's accused of being a tobacco industry stooge, John often points out that he was fighting smoking bans and defending smokers long before he had any association with tobacco companies.

This letter, published by the Irish Examiner on April 14, 2005, proves it: Smokers invited to campaign against the ban.

Back home we could do nothing to help consumers in Ireland because by 2004-5 the focus was exclusively on our UK campaign, Fight The Ban: Fight For Choice.

I'm not suggesting an earlier incarnation of Forest Eireann, which was eventually launched in 2010, would have derailed or even delayed legislation in Ireland, but it would have been nice to try.

Instead what opposition existed was easily defeated. See How the smoking ban was won (Irish Times).

I'm not sure if I fully accept this vainglorious version of history which is written, as always, by the victors. Perhaps one or two Irish readers would like to comment.

PS. To support my contention that Forest Eireann could have made a difference pre-smoking ban, here's a list of radio stations John Mallon gave interviews to in the past week:

RTE Radio 1
RTE News
NewsTalk
Kildare FM
Ocean FM
Phoenix FM

And here's a list of newspapers that have featured comments by Forest Eireann in the same period:

Irish Sunday Times
Irish Examiner
Irish Independent
Irish Daily Star
Evening Echo
The Herald
Midland Tribune
Checkout Ireland

Since the turn of the year John has also been interviewed on:

Today FM
Cork 96FM
WLR FM
Red FM
South East Radio FM
Clare FM
Mid & NorthWest Radio
Tipp FM
Northern Sound
Midlands 103
Shannonside Radio

He has also given interviews to:

Clare Champion
Longford Leader
Waterford News & Star
Tullamore Tribune

Contrast this with ten years ago. When the smoking ban was introduced in Ireland in March 2004 there was no-one representing the consumer.

Times have changed but is it too little too late? I guess we'll know in 2025, the year health minister James Reilly wants Ireland to be "smoke free" with the smoking rate reduced to five per cent or less.

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

I felt not enough was done here pre-ban either because no one really believed that such a fundamental right would be taken away when the real solution was choice and a standard of ventilation.

One thing the ban has taught us is that it's not about health, it is about snobbery, and we must never be so complacent again. Give them an inch, and we happily gave them many yards over four decades, and they will take everything we've got - including our own homes, our jobs, and our children.

[Tony]

One of the problems in the UK was that the public was kept pretty much in the dark about the blanket ban. For example, as late as December 2006, the Daily Mail run a large story stating that the ban (passed ten months previously) only applied to pubs that did not serve food. Sorry can't find a link for that right now.

[RIckie]

The smoking ban has been lost here too, not one glimpse nof any kind of victory for smokers whatsoever.

Nothing but nothing has been achieved, the idea that the irish situation is a lesson to be learnt from is a bloody joke.

you are to blamed Simon for ignoring the grass roots on your non stop tour of black tie dinners with celebrity speakers.

Go in the smoking shelters and speak to real smokers about real issues cos your blog over the years has completely ignored them and likewise they havent a clue who forest are.

A complete fail for you and forest.....not that you need to be told as much

ke

[Pat Nurse]

Thank God for Forest. It may not be perfect, but we have had no one else.

Smokers themselves are just as much to blame for accepting this junk and refusing to ignore it.

Look elsewhere if you want a scapegoat - and if you want to stop the rest of what's coming - Bloody get off your fat lazy arse and DO SOMETHING!!