The country’s biggest cigarette vending machine supplier has said that banning them will not stop people smoking.

Health Minister Simon Harris wants to remove the vending machines from pubs across the country.

Tobaccoland, which sells a €1.5m worth of cigarettes through the machines each week, employs 23 full-time and 10 part-time workers.

Director James Walshe said that cigarettes will still be visible, even if they are no longer sold in pubs.

“If you go into any retail outlet in the country … you’ve a big sign in front of the container and what does it say? Cigarette prices,” he said.

“A whole advertisement in the front of it, and he can’t ban that, because it has to be displayed. And that’s the law.”

Walshe said that the ban will destroy his workforce and he is determined to fight it.

“We feel that we’ve a great case, because what’ll happen is – if he bans the self-service machine, there’ll be a container put in behind the bar, because every cigarette in this country has to come out of a container, in all retail outlets – all shops, every place.”