Madam, - In concentrating your smoking editorial on vintners and publicans (July 9th), you, together with the small but vitriolic and vocal anti-smoking lobby, are choosing to ignore the fact that over one million adult citizens are being systematically repressed by our current Government.
Whatever one's views on smoking might otherwise be, nobody has consulted with the smokers of this country and asked their permission to be treated appallingly in the name of the law.
As part of a free press in an allegedly free democratic country, I would have thought it part of your brief to highlight repressive governmental practises - of which there are many, and the list is growing by the day. The evidence against you, I'm afraid, is otherwise - right down to the scaremongering propaganda you are happy to regurgitate like a puppet on a string. - Yours, etc.,
D.F. McCARTHY, Templeisque, Co Cork.