Madam, - Dr Jim Kiely, the Chief Medical Officer, was reported recently in the press as saying, "There can be no compromise in this area of public health." This kind of statement is scary.
There was an infamous compromise during the SARS "crisis". We compromise on the matter of non-compulsory vaccination against childhood infectious diseases, even though the lack of compulsion leads to the tragic deaths of children. We compromise all the time on health matters and in every other area of the life of the community - and so we should.
On the matter of the proposed legislation, of course a smoking room can be provided in every workplace. To prohibit this is bullying. Democracy requires us to accommodate difference.
Of course sealed smoking areas or rooms can be provided in pubs in such a manner that employees are not exposed to smoke. The means and technology most definitely are available. To argue otherwise is nonsense. To argue, in the light of the available technology, that those cleaning the room the next day would be exposed to smoke is insulting and disingenuous.
To say that a smoking couple, with no employees, who run a small country pub, can't have a smoking room in their pub is outrageous. To give us the reason that the man coming to clean the dispenser pipes (at 10 in the morning) would be exposed to smoke from the night before leaves me wondering for how long more this Minister should be even given a hearing.
The report of The Physical and Chemical Exposure Unit of the EU's Joint Research Centre (Irish Times, September 22nd) tells us that carpets, among other things, release dangerous carcinogens. Can we expect, by the same logic, that the Minister will ban carpets in pubs and other workplaces?
Using health and safety legislation to bring about lifestyle change is disreputable and unacceptable. It might be a better world if nobody smokes. It would definitely be a better world if the Minister used his zeal to sort out the health services.
People are more than their health. - Yours, etc.,
Dr MICHAEL F. O'CONNOR, Caragh Lake, Co Kerry.
Madam, - You recently published a letter from Mr Brian Cowley (October 3rd) which states that "the regular pub drinker is more likely to be a smoker". I wonder from where Mr Cowley has obtained such a statistic, and whether he has any evidence to support it.
And, perhaps more importantly, if this statistic is indeed correct, has Mr Cowley considered that the reason such a situation might arise is not related to a high percentage of drinkers that also smoke, but to a high percentage of drinkers who don't smoke, and hence prefer to drink in smoke-free atmospheres such as their own homes.
I suggest that January may in fact bring an influx of new custom, as the non-smokers emerge from the sanctuary of their homes and into our clean and airy pubs! - Yours, etc.,
K MURPHY, Leighlin Road, Carlow.
Madam, - When will it dawn on smokers that no one has a right to pollute the air that others breathe for no purpose more useful than their own pleasure.
Up to now, the minority who smoke have been tolerated. Those days are over. Let those unfortunates indulge their addiction in the privacy of their own homes; their habit is unacceptable in public.
Well done, Minister Martin. - Yours, etc.,
GERRY McARDLE, Mountjoy Square, Dublin 1.