PADDY O'SULLIVAN,
Madam, - The proposed blanket ban on smoking in pubs and restaurants is completely unworkable. I take grave exception to your Editorial of January 31st on this matter.
Ireland relies heavily on inbound tourism - something which successive governments in this country have undervalued. In 2001 1.4 million visitors visited Ireland from continental Europe. Those of us in the tourism industry have suffered two brutal years in a row - first of all there was the FMD outbreak in Britain followed by the September 11th atrocities in New York. We are constantly told by Bord Fáilte and Tourism Ireland that our future lies in the European market, yet we are now telling our European compatriots that while we are happy to have their business, they can not smoke whilst they are here, especially as we all know continental Europeans are major smokers.
Ministers Martin and O'Donoghue, wake up to reality! - Yours, etc.,
D.W. O'BRIEN, Curragh Hall, Dublin 15.
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Madam, - If asked to describe my reaction to your edition of January 30th, words like joy, relief, anticipation and euphoria would come to mind. I am referring, of course, to the Minister for Health and his intended ban on smoking in bars and restaurants. As a Bandonian I have had to endure near-gassing by cigarette smoke in my favoured local pubs on countless occasions. I welcome the prospect of clean air for a change; well done, Mr Martin!
King James I abhorred tobacco and despised Walter Raleigh for introducing it to England. In 1603 the King wrote of tobacco with an extraordinary prescience when he claimed "it made a kitchen of the inward parts of man, soiling and infecting them with an unctuous and oily soot". Yours, etc.,
PADDY O'SULLIVAN, Bandon, Co Cork.
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Madam, - Will the ban on smoking in pubs be enforced with the vigour applied to the ban on smoking in buses?
Forgive me while I laugh - just another law which almost nobody obeys and nobody enforces.
An Irish solution to an Irish problem! - Yours, etc.,
PAT BRENNAN, Glasnevin, Dublin 11.