Workplace smoking ban debate: The ardfheis overwhelmingly endorsed the Government's proposed ban on smoking from next January.
To loud applause from delegates, the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, said that there would be no rowback or change to the proposal."I have looked at the issue up and down, and I have met people from all sides. We are going to bring in the regulation," he added.
Only one delegate, Mr Edwin Finnegan, Dublin South, spoke against the measure. Addressing the Minister, he said: "Why don't you allow publicans to offer their customers a choice of smoking and non-smoking areas for a two-year period and then review the situation?"
Mr Martin said that it had been decided the best way to approach the issue was with an across-the-board prohibition.
Mr Tom Ahern, Cork South Central, said that smoking caused cancer. "It also causes illnesses such as emphysema and bronchitis," he added. He appealed to those who opposed the ban to put the health of workers, staff and clients first.
Earlier, Mr Martin said that the health of the nation, whether industrially, economically, educationally or environmentally, depended on the health of individuals. "Unprecedented national change in so fundamental an area as the health service was never going to be easy for those who live through it," he said. "Problems in the present are always going to be more interesting than gains in the future."
The real gains made, he said, ran right across every area of health. "Let me just take one illness, breast cancer," he said. "Any woman in recent years who has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and who attends any of the new developed breast cancer centres in Tallaght, St Vincent's, Waterford Regional, Galway and South Infirmary Cork is experiencing quite simply a different standard of care - a kind of care we just did not have a few years ago."
Mr Martin said that when the key recommendations of the expert group report on the development of radiation oncology services in Ireland were implemented, a cancer patient would experience the same kind of radically improved care as were now being provided for breast cancer sufferers. "Radiotherapy will be made available to them sooner and will be backed by multi-disciplinary teams, so that in one place the patient will get advice on issues like diet and at the same time get rehabilitative services to help them get back to their normal life," he added.
Mr Martin said that while making progress on many fronts, the Government was also embarking on a reform programme which would make fundamental changes to health care in Ireland.
"The reform programme is not just about changing structures. It is about accountability, planning, financial management and control systems. It is about improv- ing every aspect of a system in order to achieve the real change the public, the patient and the client want. We are not tinkering around the edges here. This is change that will affect every single corner of the system, every service delivery unit, every specialist agency, the statutory and the voluntary system, the Department itself, and, most importantly, I hope, the experience of every patient and client."
Mr Martin said he would be shortly announcing the name of the chairperson and composition of the Health Services Executive.