mr president i come from a country which has introduced a ban on smoking in the workplace
indeed i was a member of the irish parliament at the time and i fully supported the ban
however we are in a slightly different position here in the european parliament where we have to consider the principle of subsidiarity
while indeed there may be an issue with regard to the protection of workers health we have legislation in this area already such as on exposure to electro-magnetic radiation we cannot ask as we did in paragraph seven that member states where smoking bans already exist respect the principle of equality between different types of establishment in the hospitality sector
yesterday we voted on the role of national parliaments and their powers on proposed eu legislation in the area of subsidiarity under the new lisbon treaty so we have to be very careful that we are coherent in the way we vote
finally i was talking to my colleague at the very beginning and missed the vote on the european year of volunteering
i want to state that i fully support the parliament proposal for that year having led the campaign to ensure that twenty eleven was designated during the last parliamentary term
