Up to 50 people a week are reporting pubs and restaurants that are ignoring the smoking ban. Some calls have resulted in prosecutions, according to the Office of Tobacco Control (OTC).
The OTC introduced the lo-call compliance line (1890 333 100) when the workplace smoking ban was introduced last March.
It received 2,555 calls in its first six months but many were requests for information, rather than complaints about the law being flouted. In the ban's first month 677 complaints were logged. There was another surge in July which coincided with a shortlived attempt by Galway publicans to ignore the law.
Ms Valerie Robinson, the OTC's communications manager, said the pattern had settled recently, with 40-50 calls received each week. If this continues, more than 3,700 calls will have been made to the line by the ban's first anniversary.
Most calls were from people complaining about a failure to uphold the ban. Ms Robinson said most complainants had already alerted the owner to the non-compliance but found it made no difference.
In some cases, the line would receive several calls about the same premises around the same time, Ms Robinson said.
She said every call was given priority in the inspection programmes of enforcement agencies and some had resulted in prosecutions. The exact percentage was not known.
Some 14 prosecutions have succeeded against licensed premises so far. Last Tuesday, a case taken against a pub under the smoking legislation was the first such case to be dismissed by a court.
The action, against Mitchell's Corner Bar in Kildysart, Co Clare, failed when the judge said he had a slight doubt.
Compliance remained high, Ms Robinson said. The most recent figures, up to last September, indicated a rate of about 94 per cent. Some 99 per cent of restaurants were compliant compared with 91 per cent of pubs.
"If the public is getting the right to a smoke-free environment then they can rest assured that action will be taken. The compliance line is there to deal with this," she said.
The Office of Tobacco Control is still receiving calls from other countries interested in introducing similar bans on smoking in the workplace.
Variations on Ireland's smoking ban have been introduced in New Zealand, Norway and Italy with similar bans planned for Sweden and Scotland.
