Pete Robinson: Smoke signals from Ireland

To get a glimpse of things to come we need look no further than a few miles across the water to Ireland, where a number of new reports have surfaced. Curiously they've all failed to appear in the ASH Daily News.

The worst of these is pub closures which, over the last five years, have reached a depressing 1,500 outside Dublin.

"Only 1,500? Here in England we're losing that many every six months!"

Yes, that's true. But remember with a population of 4 million Ireland had less than 6000 pubs when their smoking ban was introduced in March 2004. So we're talking about a 25% loss of their total pub stock in just five years.

Anyone who follows my jottings will recall that 25% is EXACTLY my long-predicted figure for our own pub losses by 2012, five years after our own ban. It equates to almost 14,000 permanently closed pubs in England and Wales. Think about that.

"Britain was over-pubbed anyway. At least by 2012 the rest of the trade will have stabilised and we can all move on to happier times, albeit with fewer pubs?"

Think again. The study by the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI) shows that of Ireland's surviving pubs one in three is set to shut. Over a third - that's another 1,500+ pubs - now say they will struggle to survive into the future, despite massive efforts within the industry to woo more punters.

It's certainly not for the want of trying. More than half have taken to directly advertising for customers. Over 80% of Irish premises have been revamped - or added food, live music, games, etc. You know, all the things back in 2007 they promised would triple your takings once you had grasped the "New Opportunity".

And the result? Irish pub takings fell 13% in August from a year before, according to the Central Statistics Office. Over the same 12-month period at least 4,800 pub jobs were cut, said a Vintners Federation of Ireland report. That's at least one job per pub in the last year alone.

Property brokers now estimate prices for Irish pubs have sunk by 40%, suffering their worst collapse in modern history.

Before anyone says Dublin has bucked the trend you should note that the Thomas Read Group has just gone into administration. It controlled 13 'gilt-edged' bars and restaurants in Dublin plus another eight bars at the city's airport.

Last month they flogged off Dublin's Royal Denn pub for €470,000.

Six years ago the owners rejected a €750,000 offer saying it was too low.

"Stuff the pubs! I support the ban. At least Ireland must be healthier now?"

Here comes the icing on the cake. There has been no significantly recordable health gains whatsoever - and you can bet yer granny's teeth the health lobby have cynically crunched and re-crunched the numbers into powder, shifting any goalpost or decimal point in order to imply an optimistic result.

Those statistics have been massaged until they're screaming for mercy without even the pretence of a heart attack 'miracle'.

On the contrary Irish smoking rates have RISEN yet again! New figures from the EU show they are now at 33% - the highest for 11 years. That's up 6% since the inception of their smoking ban.

However as I've argued before bans increase smoking numbers, forbidden fruits and all that. So had the pre-ban trend been allowed to continue Irish smoking rates would today be below 22%.

Meanwhile Ireland has witnessed an epidemic of grand-scale cigarette smuggling so there's not even any revenue gains. The EU survey also revealed that today the largest group of smokers - 45% - is aged between 16 and 30, significantly the main target group of the original de-normalisation program.

Yet still the health fascists trumpet Ireland's smoking ban as some kind of 'success', being held up as a model all over the world. Ireland's ASH-equivalent, the Research Institute for a Tobacco Free Society, insist that bar workers health has 'improved' and are calling for even heavier taxes and legislation.

So there you have it. The only reason your livelihood is under threat is to feed the spiteful, insatiable arrogance of these nannying do-gooders. You've already had your behaviour 'corrected' by the hate-mob and lost vital trade as a result.

The recession will end one day soon, but not for this industry.

Let me leave you with this thought: Projecting those aforementioned UK closures forward at a similar rate we will see HALF of our pubs gone for good around the year 2015, perhaps earlier.

You've now seen a vision of our not-too-distant future if we merely soldier on in the blinkered hope of a brighter horizon. As Ireland did.

It doesn't have to be that way. But we must collectively comprehend this isn't a problem that's gonna fix itself.