Sir, - The recent RTE Prime Time programme on the dangers of asbestos was very disturbing, especially when we learnt that companies manufacturing the stuff knew of its lethal nature for over 50 years, yet put profit before the health of the workers by failing to inform them of their findings. Evil, but not untypical of respectable industrialists.
Naturally, those directly involved in the industry were and are most at risk, but those of us who have worked on building sites in the past number of decades will be also familiar with working with the stuff. How often we stood over a sheet or a pipe of asbestos and cut it with a mechanical saw, the dust covering us in a cloud which we now know had the potential to make us ill or even kill us. Masks were never supplied or worn in my time, which was a very macho "men don't eat quiche" era.
Sometimes I wonder if the "information age" tells us too much by sending us to bed a little troubled. As if we don't have enough to worry us. - Yours, etc., Robert O'Sullivan,
Bantry, Co Cork.