Madam, - Amid the hysteria generated by the self-styled and inappropriately named Hospitality Alliance Group over the smoking ban and, more particularly by the vintners, has anyone noticed the deafening silence of the tobacco industry and its representative group, the Irish Tobacco Manufacturers Advisory Committee?
Could it be that tobacco companies which manufacture cigarettes for the Irish market are unwilling publicly to do battle because, confronted by irrefutable scientific evidence and their own research, they know they can no longer deny the carcinogenic and fatal health consequences of tobacco smoke?
Could it be they are keeping their heads down for fear of being sued for compensation by both smokers and non-smokers who have contracted tobacco related illnesses?
Of course the Hospitality Alliance Group and the Vintners organisations are fronting the fight for Big Tobacco. They deny the tobacco companies have financially contributed to their campaign or that they are being rewarded by tobacco companies for taking on the government. Whilst some are sceptical of this claim, it is clear that the tobacco industry is not sharing the results of its own research with those fighting its battle. If it did, wiser counsel might prevail.
At the very least, those most prominently opposing the smoking ban for commercial reasons who have no concern for the health of others, should ask the tobacco companies for a financial indemnity should any non-smoker employees or regular customers sue them in the future as a consequence of contracting throat cancer or any other tobacco-related illness. By their conduct, they are turning themselves into very easy targets for such legal proceedings should any of their employees or customers contract such illness.
In the meantime, two cheers for the Minister for Health's insistence that the ban will be implemented next January. Why not three cheers Well, it is over four years since the Joint Oireachtas Health Committee published its report on "Health and Smoking" recommending the smoking ban and highlighting the health risks posed by passive smoking or environmental tobacco smoke. In that time, an estimated 28,000 people (7,000 a year) have died of tobacco-related illnesses and many more have required medical care as a consequence of such illnesses. The ban should have been brought in sooner.
Following publication of the Health Committee's Report, neither this nor future governments could plead the absence of a consensus about the health dangers of tobacco smoke or a lack of awareness of the measures required to protect both employees and the general public.
No doubt, the Minister has been advised that further delay could in future years result in the health victims of passive smoking suing the State for damages for its failure to put in place the ban recommended by the Joint Oireachtas Committee.
The public hearings of the Joint Oireachtas Committee conducted during 1997 and 1998 and the Report published by it laid the foundation for new anti-smoking legislation and the measures now being implemented. It is extraordinary that the conclusions of this report and the recommendation contained in it are being ignored in the public exchanges now taking place.
It is disingenuous and misleading for those campaigning against the smoking ban to complain that the ban's implementation is precipitate four years after the publication of the Joint Oireachtas Health Committee's recommendations. - Yours, etc.,
ALAN SHATTER,
(Author of the Joint Oireachtas
Committee Report on Health
and Smoking and former
Rapporteur to the Committee,
Upper Ely Place,
Dublin 2.