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Okay, Sean Penn smokes - as seen here last month in Berlin - but it's not big and it's not clever, right? PA Images/Markys Schreiber

Almost 4 in 5 Irish smokers want to kick the habit

European survey finds that Ireland’s smokers are second only to Luxembourg in their desire to quit – but that tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death in the country.

IRELAND’S SMOKERS WANT to kick the cigarette habit more than nearly every other European state.

According to research commissioned by Pfizer in the Europe Quitting: Progress and Pathways report, Ireland is second of 20 European countries for the number of smokers who want to quit. Only Luxembourg smokers were more vocal than the Irish in their wish to stop smoking. Seventy nine per cent of those Irish smokers surveyed said they wanted to stop.

The survey was pretty comprehensive with 20,010 smokers and 22, 683 non-smokers questioned in the 20 countries which included Ireland, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and others.

Some other sobering findings from the report, conducted by InSites Consulting last month, were:

  • Half of non-smokers and a quarter of smokers think that smoking leads to absenteeism in the workplace;
  • The average percentile of smokers in Europe who wish they could stop smoking is 67 per cent (Ireland is at 79 per cent, Luxembourg is at 83 per cent);
  • 73  per cent of non-smokers and 59 per cent of smokers in Ireland believe the Government should invest more in reducing the number of people smoking, rather than in just treating the health problems that result from the habit;
  • 92 per cent of healthcare professionals surveyed in Ireland also believe the Government should improve support infrastructure to help people quit smoking.

According to the Office of Tobacco Control, smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in Ireland – the Department of Health says that around 7,000 people die from smoking-related disease in Ireland every year.

Dr Terry O’Connor, President of the Irish Thoracic Society, said that his medical experience led him to believe that we need a national educational programme for healthcare professionals on aiding people to stop smoking. He said:

The HSE Tobacco Control Framework highlighted the need to develop national tobacco cessation training standards for healthcare professionals so that those working in smoking cessation are trained to the highest possible standards.

The health promotion manager of tobacco control at the Irish Cancer Society, Norma Cronin, was consulted for the Pfizer report. She said that young people in particular should be targeted with education and motivation-to-quit programmes. She said:

It is important that the Government and the HSE set targets so that we can bring down the numbers of people smoking to 20 per cent by 2020.

The report has made a number of recommendations for Ireland:

  1. Re-align current smoking cessation services under one central, national body;
  2. Increase reimbursement for smoking cessation medications;
  3. Provide national recognised evidence-based educational programmes on smoking cessation for all healthcare professionals;
  4. Implement actions identified in the new national guidance;
  5. Sustained education for the general public.

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9 Comments
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    Mute Tallaght two
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    Feb 21st 2015, 7:32 AM

    I would not want to be in those towers with a fire on the floors below. Very frightening. How everyone got out ok.

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    Mute Tallaght two
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    Feb 21st 2015, 7:33 AM

    *hope

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    Mute Radu Covrig
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    Feb 21st 2015, 9:12 AM

    The Torch tower caught fire. Unfortunate and ironic

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    Mute Sacha Mahady
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    Feb 21st 2015, 8:44 AM

    Wow. Another skyscraper fire that burned for hours and did not result in a pinpoint collapse. And still people accept what cr@p is spouted about what happened to tower 7 on that horrible day in sept 11. Great to hear no one was badly hurt in this fire.

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    Mute John Reese
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    Feb 21st 2015, 8:49 AM

    Did a 767 hit it though….duh no

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    Mute Paul Furey
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    Feb 21st 2015, 9:06 AM

    With full tanks of thousands of tons of fuel.

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    Mute Horgay H
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    Feb 21st 2015, 9:08 AM

    Re Sacha

    Well said

    Re John

    Tower 7, a separate building to the two twin towers, was a 47 storey skyscraper. It received minimal superficial damage from parts of the plane and none of this damage was structural. Apparently the ‘fire’ that raged in a small part of the building caused the whole structure to suddenly collapse in freefall within a clue of seconds. Scientists are still baffled as to how this happened. It was investigated and a model put forward as to how it happened but this data will not be released by the government despite lots of requests and no one else can recreate the findings of the investigators re this.

    Tower 7, is the elephant in the room. It cannot be explained and anyone who believes the official conspiracy theory them please explain Tower 7.

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    Mute Barry Cooper
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    Feb 21st 2015, 9:50 AM

    Twin towers were engineered to take a hit from the plane but don’t let facts get in the way. Building 7 fell and no plane hit that. Any thoughts on y that one fell

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    Mute Alan b
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    Feb 21st 2015, 10:01 AM

    Ah boys ye are away with the fairies!

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    Mute Gary
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    Feb 21st 2015, 10:27 AM

    Paul, Scientific fact or Media coverage, you decide. The following information is easily found.
    Extremely high temperatures were evident before and after the destruction of the World Trade Center Twin Towers. Office and hydrocarbon fires burning in open air (~500° to 1,500° F) cannot reach temperatures in the range that iron or structural steel melts (2,700° F).
    Thermal images from NASA found temperatures at ground zero to be as high as 2,800F.
    Iron oxide and aluminum are the ingredients of classic thermite, an incendiary that burns at approximately 4500°F, producing aluminum oxide and molten iron. The carbon content of the ground zero metal indicates the presence of thermite.
    Thermal images taken by NASA and EarthData satellites show that the “hot spots” remained at the same locations. The phenomenon did not “move” across the site, like one would expect from fire as it consumes the fuel available in any one location.
    University of California professor Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, the first structural engineer given access to the WTC steel notes, “I saw melting of girders at the World Trade Center.” Astaneh also “describes the connections [between supporting columns] as being smoothly warped: “That could only happen if you get steel yellow hot or white hot – perhaps around 2,000 degrees.’”.

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    Mute Andy Byrne
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    Feb 21st 2015, 11:36 AM

    Where was the plane that hit the pentagon? Or the field? Look at the pics!!

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    Mute James Whelan
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    Feb 21st 2015, 1:25 PM

    The difference between conspiracy theorists these days and those from the past is that today the so called ‘Tin foil hat ‘ merchants have all the scientific facts to back up their arguments.

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    Mute Sacha Mahady
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    Feb 21st 2015, 3:05 PM

    No John it did not. I would say it was hit with about the same amount of plane as tower 7 though. I’m not here to educate you. Do your own research before you talk nonsense.
    Separately the energy from the aviation fuel would have burnt out within a few minutes leaving only paper and desks to burn the rest. Computers and copiers don’t make great fire wood. Convenient that a un burnt passport which was apparently on the body of one of the terrorists was found at ground zero in near perfect condition too. The fact is that in every case possible. Everything falls at the line of least resistance. And the line of least resistance is not straight down through reinforced columns.

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    Mute Stephen Earle
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    Feb 21st 2015, 3:33 PM

    Sacha, they dont build towers with the same method of construction like the World Trade Center anymore so referring to it is ill informed

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    Mute Lloyd Hetherington
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    Feb 21st 2015, 9:27 AM

    That’s what you get when you use slave labour!

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    Mute Neal Ireland Hello
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    Feb 21st 2015, 12:30 PM

    I doubt that the architects were slaves.

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    Mute Charlie Mountney
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    Feb 21st 2015, 9:31 AM

    Well said Lloyd. Another ultra conservative Middle Eastern shitehole.

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    Mute Paul Cassidy
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    Feb 21st 2015, 9:45 AM

    John…you implying a 767 hit tower 7? No plane hit tower 7.

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    Mute Micheal S. O' Ceilleachair
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    Feb 21st 2015, 11:40 AM

    Remember the Towering Inferno. Good film.

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    Mute Vaibhav Borse
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    Feb 21st 2015, 9:17 AM

    i didn’t know Dubai had a torch!!

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    Mute space invader
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    Feb 21st 2015, 5:47 PM

    A few less windows for the window cleaners to clean Monday morning

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