Martin sets up a health failure smokescreen
He also agrees that this is a blanket ban, and not a law to protect workers from passive smoking. Who is affected by passive smoking when I smoke alone in my home, truck or van?
The legislation was introduced with Health Minister Micheál Martin’s usual spin and misinformation.
The main purpose of the smoking legislation was to distract the public from the very unhealthy state of our health service.
Will the €500m computer system the minister wants sort it out?
As a health policy expert he should be aware of ‘relative risk’ whereby if you enter a hospital there is an additional risk simply by being there from cross-infection, misdiagnosis or incompetence.
If the same zero-risk regulations in the smoking legislation were applied, we would be allowed to build and finance hospitals, but not attend for treatment. If the same zero-risk regulations were applied to vehicle drivers, we would be allowed to own, insure and tax our vehicles, but only drive them at 0mph.
A clearer picture with regard to the European election results in Dublin would be that Gay Mitchell has a large party machine behind him, with lots of money and hundreds of years of collective political experience.
I had one week to get 60 assenters and managed to get 1,885 votes in a further three weeks with the part-time help of 10 other people.
If you extrapolate this for three years, as the likely timing for the next general election (30 assenters needed), and put a pro-smoking candidate in every constituency, who will be running the government then?
My purpose in running was achieved in that the smoking ban is back on the national agenda and it has been shown that more or less anyone can get themselves onto the ballot paper.
I assume that when the ban is amended this will mean Dr Howell’s name will appear on the ballot paper in Dublin in order, as he puts it, “to unleash that support for the ban in a manner that the politicians would never forget.”
Paul Doonan
Smoke Ireland
Boothill
Durrus
Co Cork
