Cigarettes, smokescreens and hypocrisy
It is interesting to read the holier-than-thou pontification about smoking, particularly when in early 2001 Mr Finlay who helped formulate health policy for the former Labour/Fianna Fáil coalition Government acted as public affairs adviser to the Irish Tobacco Manufacturers Advisory Committee (ITMAC).
The Labour party chief adviser's foray into lucrative work for tobacco companies is another example of the blatant double standards of his party.
He was a paid propagandist for the tobacco industry and made representations to the Government on regulatory and financial issues.
As head of public affairs with a major PR agency, Fergus Finlay lobbied Government departments, including the Department of Health.
He admitted that he had offered public affairs advice and said he would be the first point of contact for media enquiries in relation to ITMAC.
He told The Sunday Business Post at the time:
"Tobacco is perceived as a product that requires a very high degree of regulation because it's perceived as being dangerous. I work with the tobacco companies to ensure that regulation is addressed in a fair and reasonable way."
Mr Finlay has changed his position on this issue as much as his leader has changed political parties.
Batt O'Keeffe, TD,
Dail Eireann,
Kildare Street,
Dublin 2.
Two points of fact about Deputy O'Keeffe's statement (both of them simple enough even for him to verify):
First, I have never, publicly or privately, opposed the ban on smoking. I have some doubts about its enforceability in some situations, and suggested in my piece in the Irish Examiner that that could be addressed in the regulations.
Second, I resigned from my then employer's account with the representative body of the tobacco industry, for professional reasons, after approximately a month. The only representation I ever made on their behalf was to suggest that the Department of Health should meet them as part of the process of developing regulations.
My only objection, where smoking is concerned, is to the hypocrisy of a party that is trying to have it both ways, and to appease both pro and anti-smoking interests at the same time.
