New junior health minister calls for smoking ban rollback

Finian McGrath, the new super junior health minister, has said that pubs and bars in Ireland should have designated sections for smokers and has warned against further increases in tobacco duty.

The programme for government commits to making Ireland tobacco-free by 2025 with less than 5 per cent of the population smoking by that stage. Ireland was the first country in the world to ban smoking in the workplace in 2004.

But McGrath, ...