Q&A: How Ireland views the ban
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• Ireland pub smoking ban begins
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DUBLIN, Ireland (CNN) -- Ireland is demanding clean air inside its businesses with a new anti-smoking law that went into effect Monday morning. CNN's Diana Muriel, who is in Dublin, spoke to anchor Monita Rajpal about the ban.
Muriel: You join me here outside the Sheldon Hotel, which is one of the landmarks of Dublin, and this hotel bar is putting up the "no smoking" signs this morning, and clearing up the ashtrays for the very last time.
And only those guests who have taken a room in the hotel and choose to smoke may smoke. But all public work spaces now in Ireland -- 200,000 or so -- will be smoke free, as of today.
Rajpal: How has this been received? What's the reaction?
Muriel: We visited some of the Dublin bars and pubs yesterday evening in the interests of research. And interestingly enough, the vast majority of people we spoke to were in favor of it -- and that was even people who smoke themselves.
They say that some of these bars are just too small to deal with the amount of smoke, and it was actually very uncomfortable, even for those who did enjoy a cigarette.
They understood the health issues -- around 7,000 people here in Ireland die of smoking-related illnesses each year, and even though about a third of the population smoke, that's two-thirds of the population that don't smoke, and a lot of people say they would enjoy a bar rather more if there wasn't smoke.
But the real question is how this might be enforced. It is up to the publicans and landlords to make sure that customers see the signs for no smoking, and stub out their cigarettes and don't smoke.
They could be prosecuted if they fail to impose the law, and in fact they could lose their licenses under the new law.
People agree that here in Dublin and in the other cities and towns, the new law will be enforced, but they say in the more remote villages, perhaps on the West coast of Ireland, in the small villages, where there is perhaps only one pub, and no policeman, then it will be much, much harder to enforce.
