More than 200 pubs have closed in rural Ireland due to the introduction of the workplace smoking ban, the Vintners' Federation of Ireland has claimed.
Renewing its attack on the ban, which has been in force for the past 14 months, the federation said compromise was needed to stop further damage to the rural pub trade.
Speaking at its annual general meeting in Cork, the group's president Séamus O'Donoghue said drinks sales were down, jobs had been lost and pubs had closed since the ban came into force. "We were told that non-smokers would flock to the pubs once the ban was introduced. They simply have not," he said.
The VFI, which represents 6,000 rural publicans, cited CSO figures showing 7,600 jobs had been lost in the hospitality sector last year, while the volume of sales in pubs had declined by 10 to 15 per cent.
Mr O'Donoghue said: "We do not expect the ban to be rescinded. We just want accommodation so that the hospitality industry can be hospitable."
The VFI also urged suppliers to refrain from imposing a price increase in 2005, saying rural publicans were already facing a difficult situation. Mr O'Donoghue said the average price of a pint of stout in a rural pub was €3.50, and the average profit per pint for the publican was just 32 cent.
"The common misperception is that publicans enjoy profit margins of up to 200 per cent. The reality is very different," he said. "The average annual turnover in a VFI member pub is just €60,000, and from this wages, insurance, local authority rates and maintenance payments have to be paid.
"Any time a price increase is introduced it is the publican who is blamed. Yet the only increases that have taken place in recent years have been generated either by excise duty on the part of the Government or price increases on the part of the suppliers."
Fianna Fáil TD Martin Brady has written to the board of Diageo, the parent company of Guinness, supporting the VFI's call for a price freeze. He said an increase in the price of the stout would "not only hit consumers, it will damage trade in traditional pubs and will ultimately damage the tourism industry".
The VFI said it was confident that if the suppliers agreed to a price freeze, its members would not increase their prices.
