One year on, how was it for you? Alison Healy asks four people who have a vested interest in the smoking ban
The bar worker
Donal Doherty, manager of Harry's Bar, Bridgend, Co Donegal
The Derry border is literally 500 yards up the road from us. We can see a Derry pub from our window so we were very dubious about the smoking ban. I have to confess that we were expecting trade to be down by about 15 per cent.
Once we realised there was nothing we could do, we decided that it would give us an opportunity to target new customers and to get more families in. We advertised it quite aggressively and have done a lot on the food side. We always had a restaurant but now we have a good selection of bar food as well and more healthy stuff for the kids.
There has been a general downturn in Donegal with the hospitality trade down by 10 per cent but we have held our market share. It's been hard work though. We did lose some customers in the beginning but we got new ones.
No way would I like to return to a smoking situation. It's just a better atmosphere now. Your clothes aren't stinking for a start.
The tourist
Andreia Marques, Porto, Portugal
I don't like the ban. I think it's very unpleasant being in the bar and having to come outside every time you want to smoke.
You are drinking but you cannot bring your glass out with you. We take it in turns to come out. After the meal in the restaurants, we were running out the door to smoke.
This is my third time in Ireland but first time since the ban - and the last. I am joking. I will come again but I really don't like it.
I knew about the ban before I came because it was all over the news in Portugal - "look what Ireland is doing". Portugal wants to do the same but we hope not. People like breaking the law in Portugal so it mightn't work. But it's going to be less restrictive for us. They would allow smoking areas in bars and restaurants.
The bar owner
David Hickey, owner of South's Bar in Limerick city
We renovated the pub a year ago so we've held our trade most weeks and been down other weeks. We are not down by as much as people were saying but it is down.
We are in a difficult position because our pub is landlocked. We have the footpath at the front and a laneway at the back door. The problem is that people don't like going outside.
On a wet night you see a few people huddled outside having a smoke and it looks awful. At the office parties at Christmas you would see these nicely dressed women standing outside. It's degrading for them.
The loss in custom seems to be from women more. The women who would come in for a quarter bottle of wine and a chat are now having their drink at home. Our food trade is very good though. We are in a good office belt area and would be known as a sports pub.
They talk about people not smoking so much but we are beside a betting office and if you saw the shovels full of cigarette butts after Cheltenham...
The good side is that we have lovely clean air and people say "isn't it great to walk into the pub now and not see smoke?" What we would really like is a well-ventilated little booth in the pub where people could go in and smoke.
The bookmaker
Ivan Yates, owner of the Celtic Bookmakers chain
There was concern that betting shops would be badly affected because a lot of punters did, and do, smoke. In the initial couple of weeks there would have been a handful of punters who were upset about it.
But one year on, there is no statistical data to show that turnover is down at all. People have reorganised their lives and while they bet the same amount, they will nip out for a fag now.
The only significant, strategic point I have noticed concerns the location of betting shops.
Up to now, new betting shops would have to be adjacent to pubs for a number of different factors such as footfall and accessibility. But that need has now dropped down the pecking order because of the decline in pubs.
Daytime drinking is definitely down and I would well believe it if publicans said they were badly affected.
There has been a universal welcome for the ban from the staff. The joke in the industry is that the smell of smoke covered a multitude of other smells so now sometimes punters will complain about certain odours from other punters that they wouldn't have noticed before.