The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, has made a significant climbdown from his much-repeated resistance to any exemptions on the smoking ban in the workplace.
Moving last night to exclude five categories of workplace from the ban, Mr Martin said his intervention followed legal advice from the office of the Attorney General, Mr Rory Brady.
His concessions mean that smoking will not now be banned in hotel rooms, prisons, psychiatric hospitals, nursing homes and hospices.
Mr Martin denied he had opened a loophole by exempting hotel rooms, where there are no obvious compassionate grounds for exemption. He insisted he had, in effect, strengthened the ban.
These concessions have come about despite Mr Martin's repeated insistence over the past few months that there could not be exemptions because of the seriousness of health risks linked to smoking.
However, he said employers in the exempted categories would still have a duty of care to protect their employees from smoke.
The Minister's late change of mind means the Government will have to delay the implementation of the ban until the middle of February. Only two days after his office insisted that the ban would definitely go ahead as planned on January 26th, he is open to accusations of poor planning.
Fine Gael's health spokeswoman, Ms Olivia Mitchell, said Mr Martin had jeopardised the entire legal standing of the ban. "He has had plenty of time to check the detail."
Denying that the problems could have been foreseen, Mr Martin said last night that he would publish a new date today for the activation of the ban.
He will send amendments to the regulations giving effect to the ban to the EU today. Three-months' notice is required before these amendments can be activated.
The developments last night followed a day of intensive discussions between Mr Martin and officials in Mr Brady's office, who had been asked to assess if the regulations could be "fire-proofed" from legal challenge.
After signalling in the Dáil yesterday afternoon that prisons would not be included in the ban, Mr Martin confirmed just hours later that there would be further exemptions.
Speaking to journalists, he denied his preparations for the ban had been inadequate. "I wouldn't agree with that. Months ago the focus of the debate was on the ban itself. That crystallised in October in terms of the political battle that was won."
Mr Martin said there had been a dilemma about the use of the term "dwelling" in the regulations that give effect to the anti-smoking legislation.
The most recent debate concerning the implications of a ban in psychiatric hospitals and nursing homes centred on the argument that long-stay patients had their dwellings in such institutions. "We were looking ahead in terms of legally fire-proofing ourselves against potential challenges to the edifice," he said.
But the Prison Officers' Association said last night it was seeking legal advice on the standing of exemption in prisons. The association's information officer, Mr Nigel Mallen, said it was very disappointed that "prison officers are not to have the same level of health protection as other workers".
Mr Martin said the delay would have no impact on the overall ban, which already had legal effect. "In my view, for the sake of a week or two, if that's what's required, we'll do it."
The Minister said that bedrooms in guesthouses and bed-and-breakfasts would not be exempted. He had clear advice from the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism that a distinction could be made between hotels and other forms of accommodation.
