The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, said he does have plans to restrict smoking in pubs and the workplace but will not introduce an outright ban.

He introduced an amendment yesterday to include workplaces and licensed premises on the list of places where smoking may be banned. However, to enforce this the Minister would have to introduce regulations once the legislation was passed.

The aim of the Bill is to provide stronger laws for regulating and controlling the sale, marketing and smoking of tobacco products and for enforcing those controls.

The Public Health (Tobacco) Bill 2001 was at committee stage before the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children yesterday. Mr Martin was asked by the Fine Gael health spokesman, Mr Gay Mitchell, why pubs had not been directly proposed as smoke-free zones in the legislation.

Mr Mitchell said that according to statistics supplied by the Department of Health there are now 7,000 deaths each year attributed to smoking. He said lung cancer rates in the State had increased from 9.7 per cent 30 years ago to more than 20 per cent today.

Mr Martin said he did not believe it was a good idea to introduce immediate blanket bans as they would bring the legislation into disrepute. Instead he is considering phasing in restrictions.