Madam, - I congratulate Mr Joe Walsh on his courageous stand against the proposed ban on smoking in Irish pubs and restaurants.
In giving voice to the concerns of his constituents he has done his duty as an elected representative and highlighted the shameful timidity of his colleagues in Leinster House.
It takes unusual bravery for someone in the public eye to swim against the tide of a politically correct orthodoxy that has by now submerged all honest public debate in contemporary Ireland.
Most of our legislators are now content to keep their heads down and avoid drawing the wrath of the unelected pressure groups that dictate most of our social policy and would appear to be running the country.
The Irish Cancer Society and ASH wasted no time in engaging in a ritual denunciation of the unbeliever.
The usual Maoist sloganeering about "extreme disappointment" and Mr Walsh's "inappropriate position" began as this latest ideological renegade was brought to book.
Some suggested the poor man might have fallen under the spell of a shadowy cabal of Fianna Fáil-ers, publicans and tobacco barons.
What rings especially false in this sorry saga is the repeated use of passive smoking as a stick to beat some manners into those who dare to oppose this health fascism.
For years, the anti-smoking lobby has claimed that environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is a cancer-causing carcinogen and a major contributory factor to cardiovascular disease, in those who do not smoke.
The reality is more ambiguous. There is plenty of research undertaken by reputable scientists which shows no link between second-hand smoke and ill health.
In 1987 the World Health Organisation published the results of an extensive 10-year study on the link between ETS and lung cancer, concluding that the risk posed by passive smoking was statistically insignificant.
In 1999 the UK's Health and Safety Commission decided that it could not be proved that passive smoking in the workplace was a health risk, given the lack of evidence.
And in 2002 the Greater London Authority refused to ban smoking in public, following an inquiry that again failed to make the link.
Undeterred, the anti-smoking fanatics continue their crusade with a mixture of selective facts, flawed epidemiology, and bogus statistics.
This issue goes beyond the simple enjoyment of a cigarette with a pint at the end of a day's work.
It is about the right of individual Irishmen and women to make choices about how they live, without the pernicious meddling that is symptomatic of an increasingly illiberal, coercive and overmighty State. - Yours, etc.,
PHILIP DONNELLY,
Tavistock Avenue,
St Albans,
Hertfordshire,
England.
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Madam, - A question for Mr Joe Walsh: Which is more acceptable - massive job losses in the licensed trade, or massive loss of life caused by environmental tobacco smoke? "Hold the line," Mr Martin. - Yours, etc.,
REGINALD WALSH,
Whitethorn Road,
Artane,
Dublin 5.