Irish prime minister seen smoking in no-smoking area
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 
14:00 ... Irish prime minister Brian Cowen - allegedly "the most unpopular Taoiseach since the foundation of the Republic" but also "among the top 10 world leaders" according to Newsweek magazine - was spotted smoking in a no smoking area in Croke Park on Sunday.
Our man in Ireland reports:
Croke Park is our national stadium. It hosted the All Ireland football semi-final last Sunday in front of 82,000 and the Taoisheach was there. The GAA made it a non-smoking stadium and if you want to smoke you have to get a smoker's wristband and then leave the ground. Outside there are two designated smoking areas. Our great leader however, was inside the ground in a public area when he was spotted by a smoker.
Apparently the report has provoked a "war" on RTE Radio 1, Ireland's favourite radio station. Click HERE to listen live.
14:15 ... PM's office says the Taoisheach made a mistake and put out his cigarette when asked to.
14:45 ... Croke Park official confirms that Cowen was smoking in no-smoking area but says it was "legal"!!
14:50 ... John Mallon, spokesman for Forest Eireann, tells RTE that this incident highlights the need for smoking areas in stadiums such as Croke Park.
Simon Clark
The Irish Independent reports: Cowen smoked out by fan after lighting up at Croker.
Simon Clark
John Mallon of Forest Éireann writes:
So, Brian Cowen lit a cigarette in Croke Park and it's front page news? Anyone would think that we had very little to worry about in Ireland these days. Indeed, if I were Brian, my next move would be to light a fag in a public bar on Budget Day. He could halve the old age pension, double the VAT and raise income tax to 82% and the lead story next morning would be "Smoker spotted in boozer".
Full post HERE. Comments welcome.
Reader Comments (27)
"a smoker's wristband" eh?
Those yellow badges can't be far off now.
I would have thought it more appropriate to force smokers to wear a brown star, or maybe a tobacco leaf shape?
This "outrage" by the Irish PM could even start an Irish "Kristallnacht" or maybe it might be called "Tobacconacht" when all shops selling tobacco products have their windows smashed in, and all known smokers are rounded up and sent European holiday camps.
Well could be a wake up call.
I mean if the prime minister can do it ...
Open the floodgate !
Interesting to see what happens in the British isles first anti smoking state.
The antis will be wetting themselves with angst.
I like it, I love it, I like it! Keeps the pot boiling nicely.
Didn't a certain President of the United States of America smoke with impunity at the recent G20 summit?
Simon I understand that this comment maybe deleted.
However it is only an allegation but a friend of mine who works at the House Of Commons walks past Labour MP Glenda Jackson's office regularly and there seems to be the smell of cigarette smoke. Whether they are mistaken or whom maybe smoking in her office could be open to interpretation.
For the record Ms Jackson voted for the smoking ban, so really can't be her, surely?
Not much chance of the Irish rebelling ,they've had a thousand years practice
at cowering behind country walls
Why do you think the controllers tried the total ban there first, they knew the
Irish would roll over without as much as a whimper
NO SMOKING IN CROKE PARK
Just how thick can you get.?
Boru must be turning in his cairn.
McGinty's Goat
Someone with common sense?
Good on him!
It seems that anyone in power who smokes is referred to as an "occasional smoker" to differentiate them from the rest of us plebs... errr. .. 'smokers'. Does that imply the rest of us smoke constantly for 24 hours a day, or aren't we all in fact "occasional smokers"?
Again we see hypocrasy from the political classes .
Look if you lot keep voting in more illeberal anti smoking legislation ,do us a favour and make sure you bloody well stick to it yourselves.
Quote from the Irish Independent here...
If an official complaint were to be lodged with the "Office of Tobacco Control or the Health Service Executive", enforcement officers would have to visit Croke Park and investigate if the particular area where smoking took place falls under the legal definition of an "exempted area".
"Office of Tobacco Control or the Health Service Executive" !
Looks like this bunch of sados have more power than the Irish government !
Specky: "Office of Tobacco Control or the Health Service Executive" !
Looks like this bunch of sados have more power than the Irish government !
You are right Specky, they do have more power then the Government, just as the Gestapo did in 1930s Nazi Germany. The Gestapo operated as an independent body, and were authorised to interpret the law without any legal restraints. The basic Gestapo law passed by the government in 1936 gave the Gestapo carte blanche to operate without judicial oversight. The Gestapo was specifically exempted from responsibility to administrative courts, where citizens normally could sue the state to conform to laws.
As early as 1935, however, a Prussian administrative court had ruled that the Gestapo's actions were not subject to judicial review. The SS officer Werner Best, onetime head of legal affairs in the Gestapo, summed up this policy by saying, "As long as the Gestapo carries out the will of the leadership, it is acting legally."
This is exactly what people like the "Office of Tobacco Control and the Health Service Executive" are acting like today. They know the "leadership" is still reinacting the old law of tobacco control, which the last Government put into place, so the ball is in their court, so to speak.
By rights, most modern legal systems allow the courts to review administrative acts, such as legally enforceable rules of general applicability adopted by administrative bodies. In the UK judicial review is supposed to be carried out by regular civil courts, and the smoking ban is one such law that was supposed to be reviewed this year, but from what I understand, it has been bypassed, and that is illegal under British law.
So when you talk about a bunch of sados who have more power than the Irish government, it isn't just Ireland Specky, it started in Nazi Germany and it is happening right here in our own country, in the UK.
BTW guys ASH have a Facebook site and please join me, Kate and Colin in the debate. However keep an eye out as they have deleted us in the past.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Action-on-Smoking-and-Health/36849242420?v=wall
This is hilarious! ....just shows how our leaders can't live by the rules that they themselves have created. Ha, if he can do it.....Why not the rest of us?
Yes and if we all went out on one day and smoked in the street ,all of us, it would be over ,in fact ,overnight.
Prompted by Simon, I have just looked at ‘Forest Ireland’. It is a new site, and is therefore, ‘quiet’. I posted a comment: mine is the only one. Suffice to say that I suggested that everyone should be treated in the same way, PM or not. The fact that the PM was treated differently from normal citizens is scandalous.
Is there really any need to argue against the smoking ban? It seems to me to be the case that it is gradually destroying itself – very slowly. Persons should note that local authorities are no longer interested in enforcing the law that shops, pubs, etc MUST have ‘no smoking’ notices on their doors or windows. And yet, the law that requires these notices remains in place. Ordinarily, it takes years and years for laws to become defunct, but, in this case, the period of time has been negligible. It is extremely odd that local authorities have, somehow, been allowed to TOTALLY, UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY disobey the law. It is the duty of local authorities to ensure that the notices are displayed. And yet, I am not going to report my local pub to the authorities who are, in any case, corrupt.
The whole Government is corrupt. Ir does not know what to do – about anything.
Junican - the present government might have more on its plate than enforce display of signs but, if we don't keep shouting against the ban and, most importantly, the shaky foundation on which it's based, then ASH et al will just bide their time until the next onslaught. It's taken them thirty years to make 'passive smoking' stick - they have patience and determination. I don't think that smokers can ever afford to be lulled into a sense of security.
Why don't we just ignore the smoking ban and light up and see what happens!!
"For the record Ms Jackson voted for the smoking ban, so really can't be her, surely?"
No - that would be Hypocrisy.
And Glenda has always hated that, like the Good Little Socialist she is.
Well, when OTHERS display it, at any rate....................................
"I don't think that smokers can ever afford to be lulled into a sense of security."
Mark Joyce's words well, everybody !
The ASH-ites are just enjoying the breathing space which their smokefree environment allows them........................................
Outdoors is the last battle .
Dunkirk, Stalingrad, The Alamo ,If we do prevail it will be their Kursk*.
* So sorry did I put a Nazi one in there.
Glenda Jackson allegedly permitting smoking in her office at The House of Commons? Im sure there were smoking rooms provided for the G20 Summit at the Excel Centre last year. No one government department has denied their existence.
ITS CLEARLY ONE RULE FOR THEM AND ANOTHER RULE FOR US.
Not about the health of the nation at all.
If this complete hypocrisy, could be exposed it would create such public outcry that the smoking ban would have to be reviewed.
Specky -
Wish you hadn't mentioned the Alamo !
Unless it's the Antis who are defending, of course....................................
(Don't QUITE see Liam D as a Davy Crockett type, though)
Untill the majority of sheeple in the western world wake up and see what's happening to them it is the Alamo.
They won't though untill the burden of governance becomes too much to bear financially and moraly.
Then this will happen ,which they way they (governments)are going it surely will.
Though it will take more bullying and hectoring of the people than they do now ,but their own self created monster the burdgeoning beurocracy that now controls even they and demands even more control over the people to justify it's parasitic lifestyle.
After all, they didn't read their copies of 1984 did they not suprising as they appear to be so stupid and blinkered they won't see it coming either.
By it I mean this.
Their call.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEZHZHNByCs
"they didn't read their copies of 1984 .............."
That book, together with 'Mein Kampf' and 'Brave New World', has proved a most useful Instruction Manual for our Grey Masters.
It may be Fiction.
But it's certainly no Fantasy - that's for sure.
The structure of society in Airstrip One is already in place, effectively:
The Party.
The Party Workers.
The Proles.
And let's not forget that Orwell based his Ministry of Truth on the BBC !
Won't be long before audiences are laughing at Iranian and Afghan women and children getting mown down by Apache helicopters ('Freedom and Democracy').
They're just Eurasians, after all - so not really human.
Just a matter of time.
Unless.................................
That there was a smoking room at the G20 summit I think is beyond doubt. While feeling anger at the hypocrisy of our Goverment, I would be more worried for the state of the world were President Obama not allowed to light up wherever and whenever it pleased him. The Daily Mail ran a big story with man comments, about the alleged smoking room. It was mysteriously deleted from the Mail website a couple of days later. I still have the link.
jon - is the Daily Mail story on any archive sites?