As pressure mounts for a substantial increase in cigarette prices in the Budget, Marese McDonaghlooks at new research on the dangers posed to children by parents smoking in the home
Children are being exposed to cigarette smoke in their own bedrooms, according to a health expert who has already called for a ban on "porch smoking" at pubs and hotels.
Maurice Mulcahy, principal environmental health officer with the HSE West, urges parents to wake up to the dangers of smoke migrating from room to room within the house.
With 50 per cent of Irish households still permitting smoking in the home, international statistics suggest that hundreds of thousands of Irish children are being exposed to second-hand smoke there.
Mulcahy believes the workplace ban was well received because before, even if a pub had a no-smoking area, it did not eliminate the risks of passive smoking.
"We don't seem to realise that the same applies in the home where we don't even have the ventilation systems present in these pubs, says Mulcahy. "The old saying that smoke does not read the signs is true. Smoke migrates from room to room and part of the problem is that while it takes seven minutes to smoke a cigarette, smoke will stay in the air for hours.
"There has been 95 per cent compliance with the March 2004 ban, with just 38 prosecutions to date and health experts believe its success is due the obvious reduction in health risks for the public."
Highlighting the risks posed for children who are subjected to second-hand smoke, Mulcahy says exposure is five times greater for children in families where both parents smoke than for those where neither parent smokes.
Mulcahy's research also shows that the impact for children is twice as great if the mother smokes than if the father smokes, apparently because children tend to spend more time with the mother.
He points out that exposure to second-hand smoke is greater for young babies, who are obviously most vulnerable, than for older children because as children grow up they spend less time in the company of their parents.
Mulcahy, whose research on the effects of passive smoking has been documented in international studies, carried out an experiment in an Irish house where the father confined his smoking to one large room but where smoke migrated to his son's bedroom.
Out of the 2,500 cigarettes this man smoked every year, Mulcahy found that a cloud of smoke equivalent to 400 cigarettes reached his son's bedroom.
A recent study found that smoking is restricted to certain rooms in 25 per cent of households in the west of Ireland while the same proportion permits smoking everywhere in the house. Smoking is totally banned in 50 per cent of homes, up from 42 per cent before the ban.
There was at least one smoker in 50 per cent of homes and the average number of cigarettes smoked each day was 20.
While passive smoking is assumed to be non-existent in public places now, research carried out by Mulcahy contradicts this.
In a survey last year on the impact of the smoking ban on pubs and hotels in Galway, he found that while tobacco smoke pollution had been reduced in pubs, it had not been eliminated.
None of the pubs surveyed after the ban were smoke-free despite the fact that no one was smoking inside.
The researchers found that pubs with designated outside smoking areas had higher concentrations of airborne nicotine inside than those that did not.
Mulcahy points out that where large groups of smokers congregate immediately outside the door of public buildings, smoke migrates inside.
He says that one person smoking outside will not have the same impact and he recommends that rather than having a designated smoking room in the house, that smokers should go outside.
US studies have shown a dramatic and almost immediate drop in the number of heart attacks in areas where smoking bans have been introduced, Mulcahy says.
"It is unclear whether this is because more people quit because of the ban or whether it is because of the reduction in passive smoking," he says.
He urges parents to learn lessons from the workplace smoking ban and consider the risks smoking poses in the home.
"It is an insidious risk. Even when doors are closed smoke migrates so people need to be wise to the dangers. "
Exposure to second-hand smoke is five times greater for children in families where both parents smoke than for those where neither parent smokes
Maurice Mulcahy, environmental health officer