Nearly a third of retailers surveyed in Cavan last year sold cigarettes to children whose age was "unmistakable" despite having been warned that such a survey was taking place, an environmental health conference heard yesterday.
The conference in Newcastle, Co Down, also heard of how efforts to cope with the Omagh bomb blast in 1998 were hampered by the destruction of telephone lines.
The conference is organised by the Environmental Health Officers Association and by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health in Northern Ireland.
The Cavan survey was conducted last year, in conjunction with a survey in Monaghan, an environmental health officer, Mr Barry Coady, told the conference.
"We have suspected a number of premises in Cavan-Monaghan of selling cigarettes to children for quite a while despite numerous verbal and in some cases written warnings," he said.
Fifty premises were chosen in each county for "test purchases" by children. All the retailers were warned at least twice that a test purchase would be carried out on their premises at some point in the near future. Despite the warning, "in Cavan 30 per cent of the premises tested sold cigarettes to children whose ages coincidentally ranged from 10 to 12 years and who looked unmistakably that age".
In Monaghan, 20 per cent of premises sold cigarettes to the same children, and Mr Coady notes that retailers made "almost comical" comments to the children at the time.
The children in the survey "looked unmistakably below the age of 18 years, hence ensuring that the retailer would only have to look at the child in order to determine that he or she was not of the legal age to acquire a tobacco product," said Mr Coady.
"We felt it only fair to give the retailers every opportunity to comply. Had the children been 15 or 16 years of age, the number of sales may have dramatically increased."
The offending premises have been warned that a second offence will result in prosecution. On the next visit the child will be accompanied by an environmental health officer to witness the transaction.
The experience of coping with the aftermath of the Omagh bomb showed that those who were planning for a major disaster must ensure telephone lines were as secure as possible, the conference was told.
Dr Ian Leitch, a senior environmental health officer with Omagh District Council, said that on the afternoon of the bombing, the emergency centre had to be moved from the council offices to the leisure centre because there were no working phone lines in the offices. For some hours the leisure centre had only one working telephone.
At the time of the bomb few council officials had mobile phones. It was also difficult to get through on mobile phones because of the surge in use by media people and others.
When the phones in the emergency centre were reconnected, those working there had about 1,000 queries to deal with.
He recalled telephoning families at 4 a.m. to see if their relative had returned. In some cases the relative had not returned and was not on the list of people being treated in hospital. In such a situation "you don't know what to say", he said.
Following the bomb, the district council made a point of being represented at every funeral. He recalled meeting a council member who had been to six funerals in one day.