'It's awful to admit to 20-a-day'

Kirstie McMurray (34), co-presenter of the Cool FM Breakfast Show with Pete Snodden, lives in Bangor with children Connor (9) and Katie (7), and smokes 20 a day. She says:

I was 19 when I started smoking, which is quite unusual as most people begin when they're at school. I was just trying to fit in with the crowd I was hanging around with. That was 16 years ago ... and it's time to give up now, although I've been saying that for the past five years.

I smoke 20 cigarettes a day, which is awful to have to admit. I know it's so wrong, but it's such a difficult habit to kick and people who don't smoke find it hard to understand. That's why I really encourage kids not to smoke because it's so hard to give up when you're older.

I have tried various methods to give up - gum, an inhalator and patches - but I lack willpower and it's a real struggle. Once when I gave up for three weeks, I noticed, even in that time, a dramatic change in my skin, and I felt fresher - there are so many positives in giving up including the obvious health reasons. But then I got extremely stressed and I was back on them again.

A big worry, which perhaps applies more to women than men, is that during those three weeks I put on weight. I know the health benefits in giving up smoking would outweigh that but women just want to stay as slim as possible, and I think smoking increases your metabolic rate.

I started on the Breakfast Show with Cool FM last May and because I get up earlier in the morning I'm awake more hours in the day, and therefore smoke more.

I'm also very conscious that you can detect a smoker a mile off, due to the smell, and as a single woman looking for her Mr Darcy it really doesn't help. Socially it's not acceptable, but on the other side of things when you go for a night out all the smokers congregate outside - and it's great. You get so many more decent conversations than inside, and meet new people.

I don't like smoking around non-smokers because they might be judging me and also I don't want to be guilty of affecting their health, and I don't smoke in my own house, I go outside to the garden.

The TV ads really made me sit up and think. It's so easy to think 'that'll never happen to me', but more and more you hear horrible stories about people taking ill. I know if I stop smoking I'd have a much better life expectancy and all round better health.

Also, heart disease runs in my family which is an added incentive to stop. But the greatest drive for me is that I've got two kids whom I love dearly and the thought that something awful could happen to me, and the kids could be left without me, is what really makes me think.

They give me a hard time about smoking and, of course, I don't smoke around them. They get good education at school about how smoking's bad for you, but I remember being the same with my parents, telling them to stop.

One question I would raise is if the Government knows how harmful smoking is and imposes rules on where you can and can't smoke, why doesn't it just ban it altogether?"

'Drinking's worse than smoking'

Chris Moore (57), UTV Insight reporter, from Belfast, enjoys smoking 20-30 a day and has no intention of giving up. He says:

I started smoking when I was 17, although I had my first experiment when I was eight or nine, behind a hedge in my home town of Ballymoney, with my friend George. We told a neighbour that my mum wanted to borrow 10 cigarettes. George went green and never again smoked a cigarette in his life, and while I didn't quite go green I got into trouble with my parents. I didn't smoke again until I was 17 and I have no idea why I started - it wasn't because of peer pressure.

I stopped smoking for nine months when I was 18, and I've never tried to give up since - I just don't want to. I smoke between 20 and 30 cigarettes a day and I enjoy it, apart from the price - but that's the Government taxing smokers to help maintain the health service, and then they won't treat us when we get ill. I think they are behaving in a dishonourable fashion. If they had any morals or standards at all, or any concern about smoking causing ill health, they should ban the sale of tobacco completely, but then they'd lose millions. It's so hypocritical.

It annoys me when people go on about how bad smoking is for you because there are so many other things that are bad. I think there's more damage done in terms of cost to the health service and family life by drink. It's a bigger curse on society yet it seems that they're only beginning to look at it now. For years there's been a problem with drink- driving, domestic violence and illness, including mental problems, caused by drinking.

There are other dangerous things in life - cars, which are continually being made faster, and the fumes from cars. I think the issue of the smoking ban could have been dealt with in a different way - for people out to enjoy a social drink an area indoors could have been established to allow smokers some degree of comfort. Now that the issue of alcohol is being tackled, are they going to throw the drinkers out?

I'm not convinced by the argument of passive smoking but I do understand why people like a smoke-free environment - when I go to my dad's house, I go outside to smoke because he's a non-smoker and I respect that.

Do I worry about getting ill? No - I've never had any major illness and have missed very few days in my working life. I have a smoker's cough in the morning but I'm not concerned - there are so many other things that could kill me, like a car or bus, and you just never know the day. My eldest son, Jason (37), is a smoker, Steven (32) is a non-smoker and my daughter Louise (29) smokes, but I never told them to smoke or not to smoke. They are grown up and made up their own minds.

Smoking is my choice and I just wish I'd be allowed to get on with it."