A sophisticated lobbying and publicity campaign has developed in a matter of weeks, reports Carl O'Brien.
In a thronged conference room in the Galway Bay Hotel, neatly dressed publicans, restaurateurs and café-owners are listening attentively to the leader of the newly formed hospitality alliance in full flight.
Finbar Murphy, a youthful-looking 40-year-old Cork publican, is listing reams of statistics detailing what he describes as New York's devastating experience with its no-smoking ban in pubs and restaurants.
Briefing sheets are handed out to the crowd which will be used to lobby TDs, senators and councillors with headings such as "Border areas will be devastated", "We're looking for balance" and "The legislation will be unenforceable."
It is the third in a series of well-attended information meetings held by the Irish Hospitality Alliance (IHIA) alling for changes in the planned ban on smoking in the workplace.
The alliance, which says its members are drawn from pubs, restaurants, hotels and guesthouses, is quickly emerging as the official voice of the hospitality industry.
Backbench Fianna Fáil TDs, ever sensitive to publicans' feelings, are quickly getting to know all about the alliance's call for a compromise. And the public, thanks to a vigorous media campaign, have heard their spokespeople articulate their position on radio, TV and the newspapers.
Yet in the six weeks since the alliance exploded on to the scene, few know who its members are, where they have come from and who exactly they represent.
And many are beginning to ask why, all of a sudden, TDs are scrambling to make their feelings known about an issue which, until recently, did not figure on the radar screens of most politicians.
The alliance was established by a group of young, commercially savvy publicans and hoteliers in the Cork and Kerry areas in late June, who were alarmed at the scope of the planned ban.
"I was stunned coming out of a Health and Safety Authority meeting last June," says Mr Murphy, who owns the Westpark Hotel in Cork and Finnegan's Bar in Limerick.
"It hadn't been clear until then how far the ban went.
"A few of us, who are responsive and nimble, set up the organisation. It's a grassroots movement."
After just three weeks the alliance was claiming it had 3,500 members, although there is no official register of who has joined.
The Minister for Health ever so slightly questioned their legitimacy when he announced last month that he would be happy to meet them to "establish their representation."
Mr Murphy, however, says the membership was drawn primarily from members of vintners' groups in the Cork and Kerry region at the start, but has since widened to include other publicans, hoteliers and guesthouse-owners worried about the implications of the ban.
"We'll take any member of the hospitality industry, whether they're vintners or hoteliers. There are 15,000 businesses who aren't represented by anyone," he said. "There is no flag representing that body of opinion."
The Licensed Vintners' Federation, the Vintners' Federation of Ireland and the Irish Hotels Federation say they are not officially aligned with the alliance, although they are aware that some of their members have signed up to the new group.
"I don't know who exactly the members are," said Tadg O'Sullivan, chief executive of the Vintners' Federation of Ireland. "They are a fairly loose alliance with a one-item agenda, so they don't have a formal structure."
"At the end of the day we're all singing off the same hymn sheet," said John Brown, chief executive of the Irish Hotels Federation. "We'll be stepping up our own campaign in the next few weeks with the other organisations."
The professional thumbprint of public relations experts is all over the alliance's campaign.
In its promotional literature it says that it "shares the goal of reducing smoking" and that "movement towards this worthy goal" can be completed, but only if the Government is willing to compromise and consider a number of alternative solutions.
The spokespeople are well briefed, articulate and always available for interview. Press releases are being fired out regularly, highlighting holes in the Minister's regulations and warning about the devastating economic effects of the ban, and are attracting publicity at what is traditionally a quiet time for the media.
It's no surprise, therefore, to find that the alliance is being advised by the newly established public relations firm, Q4, which features among its founders a former secretary-general of Fianna Fáil and former adviser to the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern.
While the smoking ban has been known about since last January, it only seriously erupted as a political issue this week.
Once the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, came out against the "politically correct" measure, a significant number of backbenchers also voiced their support for a compromise measure, while other Ministers declined to declare their hand.
So what suddenly prompted this flurry of political activity at a time when the Dáil is not in session and TDs are traditionally on their holidays?
"We are lobbying TDs at grassroots level," said Mark Kelleher, a 32-year-old Cork publican and founder member of the alliance. "Q4 is advising us on media issues only. We are doing the lobbying on the ground. The public relations company is just a small part of the overall operation."
In the absence of popular support - latest opinion polls show around 67 per cent of people favour Mr Martin's ban - the focus has inevitably shifted to the political system and the lobbying of TDs.
The date circled in the diaries of the Irish Hospitality Alliance is September 11th, when Fianna Fáil holds a two-day parliamentary party meeting in Co Sligo. The alliance is hoping there is enough support among Fianna Fáil TDs to set off a debate and pressurise the Government into considering compromise measures.
In the meantime the other interest groups, the vintners, publicans and hoteliers, will begin to crank up their campaigns, using a combination of reports, surveys and old-fashioned lobbying.