The Office of Tobacco Control has been strongly criticised in a review of this year's sponsorship of the Irish Masters Snooker tournament.
The criticism was made in a "post-sponsorship review" provided to the Health Promotion Unit of the Department of Health and Children. It was written by the HPU's advertising agency, QMP D'Arcy.
The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, decided early this year to become a joint sponsor, with the Citywest Hotel, of the snooker tournament. Anti-tobacco legislation had forced Gallaher (Dublin) Ltd to drop its sponsorship. The £200,000 sponsorship involved the HPU and the Office of Tobacco Control.
Earlier this year The Irish Times received documents from the Department under the Freedom of Information Act relating to the sponsorship. The letter from QMP D'Arcy, marked "private and confidential" was not included.
The letter accuses the OTC (an independent body with a board of management appointed by the Minister) of interfering in the agreement between the Department and the tournament organiser, Kevin Norton Event Management.
By trying to promote "its own agenda" the OTC "hampered the ability of the Department to promote a central anti-smoking message," it says.
The OTC, whose brief is to promote the anti-tobacco initiatives of the Minister for Health, caused "unnecessary delay and confusion", it alleges, by trying to get its own agreement with the tournament organiser.
Referring to the remaining two years of the sponsorship, it says: "We suggest the Department closely examines what role, if any, the OTC should play in the sponsorship."
Neither QMP D'Arcy nor Mr Norton would comment yesterday. The Department of Health would only say that it had "received the advice and it is being taken into consideration in the normal course".
The OTC said it had been invited by the Minister to become a sponsor. "Following negotiations the office concluded a sponsorship agreement with the event organisers in a manner agreed by the Department of Health and Children," it said.
The documents released under the Freedom of Information Act suggest the OTC forwarded details to the Department in February of how it wanted its presence reflected at the tournament. In March it expressed unhappiness that it had received no confirmation that its views had been accepted. This culminated in the OTC sending a draft agreement to Kevin Norton Event Management four days before the tournament seeking, among other things, to have snooker players make supportive comments about the Minister's tobacco-free society initiative.