Health police have taken your handcart
What exactly is a workplace?
Your office, yes; your factory, yes; your shop, yes; but also airports, bus stations, the street (yes, people work in the street), public parks and, in theory, your home (whenever you need the services of a plumber, painter, electrician, whoever).
If you drive a company car, is that not part of the workplace?
In other words, the effect of the legislation is to ban smoking in any place at anytime. Why not be honest and ban tobacco altogether?
But the government can't do that openly because tobacco happens to be a legal product they just make sure it is illegal to consume it and of course they will still want the billions in taxes generated by tobacco consumption.
That leaves us with health reasons. If the authorities are so concerned for our wellbeing, why not also ban alcohol and fast food?
After all, cirrhosis and obesity account for far more deaths than tobacco. Micheál Martin and his health police apparently want to dictate the way we live.
I thought that going to hell in your own handcart was an indisputable right, but now it has to be approved by the government.
The health police must be obeyed and our freedom to live our lives in the way we've always taken for granted is gone forever.
Richard Ashton,
13, Island View,
Malahide,
Co Dublin
