Former mayor of New York Mr Rudy Giuliani has added his voice to the debate on banning smoking in the workplace by claiming people should have the right to choose.
The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, is in New York to study the effect of the city's ban on smoking in restaurants and bars, in place since last May. Mr Martin intends to introduce a similar ban on January 1st next year.
Mr Giuliani, most famous for his zero tolerance policy on crime and his handling of the September 11th attacks, is on a visit to Ireland to promote his memoirs.
He insisted today the Government should give people the right to choose, rather than enforcing outright bans on smoking in workplaces.
"I think governments should provide the ability for people who want to make a choice to make that choice," he said. "Therefore some people want the choice of being able to dine in a smoke-free environment, they should be entitled to that.
"And some people want to make the choice of being able to have a cigar or a pipe or a cigarette after dinner, and they should be provided with an opportunity to do that".
Mr Giuliani, who is due to speak at a conference in Cork on Friday, said he was in favour of a more lenient law, such as the one imposed in New York in 1994 that prohibited smoking in areas where people were eating but allowed it in certain closed off areas.
"It limited pretty dramatically the places you could smoke but it left open some places where people who enjoy smoking would be allowed to do it," he added.