The Vintners' Federation of Ireland (VFI) has sent an eight-page solicitors' letter to the Minister for Health outlining what it says are serious flaws in an independent report on which the proposed smoking ban is based, reports Liam Reid.
The VFI confirmed it would also consider taking a legal challenge to the all-out ban if it goes ahead in its current proposed form.
Mr Tadhg O'Sullivan, chief executive of the VFI, said the group had sought legal advice from Hayes Solicitors on the Report on the Health Effects of Environmental Tobacco in the Workplace.
At the end of last month the firm of solicitors wrote to the Minister, Mr Martin, on behalf of the VFI, outlining what it identified as "inconsistencies, discrepancies and inadequacies" in the report.
Mr O'Sullivan told The Irish Times that a decision on whether to take a legal challenge was "for another day".
"However, if we find legally that the report is flawed and the Minister takes action based on that report, then we're entitled to consider anything."
Mr O'Sullivan also described as "a joke" a new EU study which has found that increased ventilation will do little to clear harmful tobacco smoke from pubs and restaurants.
The findings, reported in The Irish Times yesterday, were made by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), one of the EU's most important scientific institutions.
However, Mr O'Sullivan said the conclusion was based on obsolete equipment.
"No VFI establishment has had equipment that changes air once an hour in the last 20 years.
"This research makes the same mistake as the so-called expert report which the Minister relied on to introduce this proposed smoking ban. It is totally discredited."
The Irish Hospitality Industry Association (IHIA), which was set up to lobby against the proposed ban, was also sceptical of the report, which also found harmful levels of other carcinogenic compounds indoors.
"The logical conclusion is that living and working inside should be banned," an IHIA spokesman said.
The VFI has commissioned its own research on the effects of ventilation on environmental tobacco smoke.
Researchers from the University of Glamorgan are carrying out the study in two pubs in Ireland which have been fitted with ventilation systems.
The preliminary results are believed to mirror a similar study carried out by the same researchers in Manchester last year.
The researchers concluded that carbon-monoxide levels were reduced by 67 per cent, and particulate matter by 82 per cent.
However, Mr Martin said yesterday that he intended to proceed with the proposed all-out ban and welcomed the EU research.
"It confirms what our own expert committee said back in last January when it published its report . . . Ventilation does not take the chemicals out of the atmosphere, the cancer-causing chemicals and the pollutants."
In a radio interview on Today with Pat Kenny, Mr Martin said he also favoured making nicotine-replacement products more widely available in all shops, rather than being confined to pharmacies, as they are under current legislation.
However, he conceded that the all-out ban would not be occurring on exactly January 1st next year, as previously proposed, but in the first two weeks.
Mr Martin is also to propose a 50 cent increase in taxes on cigarettes to the Department of Finance for the forthcoming budget.
"[The World Health Organisation] says that price is perhaps the greatest weapon any government has to prevent young people in particular from starting up smoking.
"If we can get the initiation rates down then we can prevent longer-term damage to public health," he said.