Madam, - The recent comments by Mr Martin Cullen regarding the proposed smoking ban in pubs and restaurants raise two questions:
1. As Minister for the Environment, is it his duty to support the Minister for Health's efforts to improve the health of the nation?
2. What is the explanation for his alignment with the pub owners' cartel, which is one of the wealthiest and most powerful lobby groups in the country, and which, over the years has succeeded in emasculating most of the efforts made to reform the licensing laws?
His rather silly effort to drag anti-Americanism into the controversy makes little sense. If he is really so passionately against things emanating from America, perhaps he should start a campaign to abolish the aeroplane, the motor car and the telephone. - Yours, etc.,
FINTAN P.CLANCY, Georgian Village, Dublin 15.
Madam, - As someone who witnessed a smoking ban in my workplace in 1989, I support the introduction of such bans, even if that does mean the inclusion of restaurants and pubs.
I was an air-hostess with Aer Lingus for 28 years and regularly stewarded on trans-Atlantic and pan-European flights where passengers smoked freely. No-one wanted to work at the back of the 747s on the trans-Atlantic route.
My colleagues always said they were much more exhausted coming off these flights when they worked in the smoking zone and our uniforms always carried that stale smoky smell.
None of us believed that people could go eight to 11 hours without smoking. When the ban was first introduced on flights, passengers grumbled initially but numbers on flights certainly did not decrease and my colleagues and I found it so much easier to work on long-haul flights and finally felt protected from a deadly cancer-causing agent.
Since the ban on flights was introduced I have also in fact undergone treatment for breast cancer and luckily have survived and am moving on. I say let's give this legislation a chance. Let's protect our workforce, especially those vulnerable restaurant and bar staff, from the deadly effects of tobacco. - Yours, etc.,
MEAVE DERHAM, Grey's Lane, Howth, Co Dublin.