A claim that the Government's plan to ban smoking in pubs and restaurants next year could cost 65,000 jobs in the hospitality sector was described as "over the top" by the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, yesterday.
The claim was made recently by the newly formed Irish Hospitality Industry Alliance (IHIA).
Mr Martin said certain US states had banned smoking in bars without such job consequences.
Pledging to persevere with his plans to impose a ban on smoking in pubs from January 1st, he said the cinema industry did not collapse when people had to stop smoking or people didn't stop flying when smoking was banned on planes.
Banning smoking in pubs was a health and safety issue. "We have been presented with a fairly comprehensive and damning report compiled by experts in their field ... to the effect that people who work in hospitality have a 30 per cent higher chance of getting cancer or heart disease. That is the bottom line.
"At times I wonder about our complacency about the single biggest killer in this country. We have hysteria and hype about all sorts of things that happen from time to time, and here is something that is slowly destroying the quality of life of thousands of people and killing thousands of people and we seem to be saying that the bar worker or person working in hotels or restaurants, that somehow their life and their quality of life and their health is of lesser value than an office worker."
The alliance says it wants a balance to be struck between the needs of smoking and non-smoking customers. It would agree to increase the size of no-smoking sections and better air-quality standards.
The alliance is sending a delegation to New York to meet industry colleagues who claim business has been cut by 30 per cent since the smoking ban was introduced there in April.
Its claims of substantial job losses were also dismissed as conjecture in a joint statement from the Irish Cancer Society, the Irish Heart Foundation and ASH Ireland.
They said research had shown that in California, which eliminated tobacco smoke in restaurants in 1995 and bars in 1998, business has continued to grow.
Furthermore, they said claims by the IHIA that business in New York has dropped by 30 per cent since the introduction of the ban there was based on results of a survey of only 50 public houses.
"All workers (including office, restaurant, pub, bingo, bowling, casino and nightclub workers) deserve a safe, healthy, smoke-free work environment."
The bar workers' union, Mandate, said the claims of substantial job losses were "without foundation".