One of the unexpected bonuses of the workplace ban on smoking has been the "significant" reduction in the numbers who smoke at home, especially among the less-affluent socio economic groups, new research has found.
But health experts have pointed out that smoking is still permitted in 50 per cent of Irish households - despite the fact that passive smoking claims five times as many lives in the home as it does at work.
Research carried out by Dr David Evans, a senior researcher in the public health department of the HSE West, found that there had been an 8 per cent drop in households that permit smoking since the March 2004 workplace ban was introduced.
"The smoking ban has had a significant knock-on effect and that is brilliant but smoking in the home is still a major public health issue which we need to address," said Dr Evans.
Addressing a National Smoking Prevention and Cessation Conference organised by the HSE in Letterkenny, he said that even before the workplace ban, passive smoking in the home was considerably more lethal.
The European Respiratory Society estimated that 441 Irish people died in 2002 as a result of passive smoking at home compared with 75 deaths here due to smoking in the workplace.
Dr Evans said an outright ban on smoking in the home was probably not realistic for political as well as policing reasons: "No politician will come out before an election and ban smoking in the home because our home is still our castle but we have to look at different ways of tackling this."
Dr Evans surveyed more than 500 householders in Mayo, Galway and Roscommon before the smoking ban was introduced and recently carried out comparative research among 425 householders in the same region.
He found that 50 per cent of householders do not now allow smoking anywhere in the home, compared with 42 per cent in 2002.
The number of people in the highest socio economic group who have banned smoking everywhere in the home has increased marginally from 54 to 56 per cent. In the lower socio economic category, 44 per cent do not now allow smoking anywhere in the house compared with 34 per cent in 2002.
Dr Evans said he could only speculate as to reasons for the more significant drop among the less affluent who are more likely to smoke. "The people who have to leave the pub to smoke are being hit in the face more and [ are] probably forced to think about what they have been exposing their family to," he said.
One of the more worrying findings was the high number of people who would like to stop people smoking in their home but feel unable to do so.
"We found that 37 per cent of people who permit smoking in their home would prefer if people did not do so but felt unable to stop either other family members or visitors because they lacked the necessary assertiveness skills," said Dr Evans.
But he pointed out that the bottom line was the serious damage being caused to non- smokers including young children, even by those who go into another room or outside to smoke.
"Of course it is very beneficial if someone goes outside but it is not 100 per cent safe depending on how near the door they are or whether windows are open."
