McDonald's has added a new range of salads, including low- fat options, to its fast-food menu in the hope of enticing more discerning and "hip" women customers back to the restaurant.
The menu additions include a range of chicken salads that may be ordered with or without dressings and fruit desserts.
Ms Siobhán Murray, a spokeswoman for McDonald's, said the restaurants were offering "healthier options" to burgers and fries to give the customer greater choice and get young women to return.
"Once women hit a certain age, usually when they go from school to college, McDonald's just doesn't seem the hip place to be. We're trying to draw back these customers by offering them something new, where previously they felt there wasn't anything for them," Ms Murray said.
Ireland is the last European state to get the new menu, which was criticised in the UK when it emerged that one of the salads contained more fat and calories than a Big Mac.
The crispy chicken Caesar salad with dressing and croutons contains 530 calories and 30g of fat while the Big Mac has 493 calories and 22.9g fat. However, Ms Murray said, the comparison was unfair.
"You're not comparing like with like. You have to measure the weights of both items, and you're getting an awful lot more in the salad."
None of the new menu items qualifies as high fat, said Ms Elmary Purtill of the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute. "The chicken Caesar salad contains 30g of fat but that's in a portion of 385g. The INDI considers low fat to be below 5 per cent of the weight of the product, this is around 7 per cent. While you wouldn't consider it low fat, it is moderate and certainly not high.
"What we're trying to do is encourage people to eat more fruit, vegetables and fibre," she said.
While a large number of customers chose the salads at McDonald's flagship Grafton Street outlet, some were less than enthusiastic.
"I probably wouldn't buy one, you come here for junk food," said Ms Elaine Buckley, a secondary school student.