PHILIP DONNELLY,
Madam, - Anyone who has ever enjoyed a drink in an Irish pub will greet the widening of Ireland's anti-smoking regulations announced by the Minister for Health with dismay. Imposing a ban on smoking in workplaces, trains and in restaurants and pubs when food is being served Mr Martin has also signalled his intention to eventually prohibit completely smoking in licensed premises.
Ireland's pubs are rightly famous worldwide for their smoky conviviality. Banning cigarettes would transform our public houses into the kind of antiseptic, joyless catacombs one finds in places like San Francisco.
No doubt Mr Martin champions this as progress, but I detect a different agenda at work here. There are many things wrong with Ireland today that this Government seems unable, or perhaps unwilling, to tackle. Spiralling inflation, appalling street crime, extortionate car insurance, vanishing industry - there is no shortage of issues demanding the urgent attention of an administration determined to serve and defend the interests of its people.
Unfortunately the current Government seems to lack the backbone necessary for the job, and prefers instead to engage in the kind of illiberal social meddling that is sold to the public as "action".
Mr Martin is going to "get tough" we are told, and this can't do his career prospects any harm either.
Decades of government bullying have made it so much easier to get tough on smokers, than say, tax evaders or joyriders. Year after year the price of cigarettes has soared, as successive governments determined the best way to cure the smoker was to rob him. Smokers are the minority it has become acceptable to victimise, and their hounding has become enshrined as a great untouchable of Irish health policy. Mr Martin correctly points to the cost of treating smoking-related illness, but is silent about the huge revenues generated for the public purse by tobacco taxes.
I began smoking in my early teens and gave up in my mid-twenties, fearing the damage I was doing to my body. Nobody made me start, and nobody made me stop. At the heart of this matter is the free will of individuals to make choices without the interference of government, to live their lives as they wish, free from coercion and harassment.
With the rise of the nanny-state in recent years, our liberties and rights are being whittled away by lobby groups and politicians bent on imposing their values on the rest of us. The noisy tyranny of the anti-smoking brigade prevails against the view of the greater majority - of smoking as a comforting and mild vice.
Ireland's anti-smoking laws have set a new and disgraceful standard in prohibitionist, intolerant and hypocritical law-giving that I hope no other European countries will follow. - Yours, etc.,
PHILIP DONNELLY, St Albans, Hertfordshire, England.
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Madam, - With the announcement of Mr Martin's plan to prohibit smoking in all restaurants and in pubs where food is served, the public's growing intolerance of smoking is being made quite evident, and rightly so.
However, as an addict myself, I am ever more disappointed with the Government's continuing refusal to address the problem at root level. I am a hard-working, tax-paying member of society and I truly want to rid myself of this dreaded habit once and for all. But in my many attempts to give up cigarettes I have found myself spending €40 or €50 at a time on products and services to assist me in my mission.
When my willpower wanes, the nicotine gum and acupuncturists invoices are cast aside - and in a way only an addict can understand, a cigarette is used in their place. If, in a few months time, I summon the willpower to "give up" again, I am forced to spend yet more money on the same type of product or service.
Ironically, it is the cost of these products which is a very strong deterrent in any decision I may feel like taking to try to give up smoking. If I was a heroin addict the Government would give me methadone, courtesy of the State, to help me to reform myself. Why then, as a consumer of a legitimate drug, am I denied assistance in trying to give up cigarettes? Has the State not taken enough revenue from the inordinate taxes on every packet of cigarettes I have ever purchased? - Yours, etc.,
C.DUNNE, Abbeyfield, Milltown, Dublin 6.
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Madam, - Legislation to stop smoking in all public places is long overdue. A WHO report has confirmed passive smoking as a cause of lung cancer and it also contributes to conditions such as asthma. The Government cannot ignore these findings and allow workers to be exposed to tobacco smoke in the workplace.
A total ban is the only acceptable and workable solution and the bar workers' union is to be applauded for taking this stand. The response of those opposed is predictable but must not be allowed to eclipse the fact that a ban will improve health and save lives.
Past behaviour suggests business will not suffer in the longer term. Post-budget trade dips have always been short-lived and the smoking ban on aircraft did not deter passengers - in fact most smokers welcomed it. In this instance, smokers trying to stop will feel less vulnerable to the dreaded weed in a smoke-free bar.
Smoking in public places has had its day and most of us realise that a total ban is the right way forward for our children and ourselves. This is a health opportunity not to be missed. Strong government is needed and this is a golden opportunity for Micháel Martin to show leadership. Go for it, Minister! - Yours, etc.,
Dr E. DOYLE, Carrigtwohill, Co Cork.