Our government is a democratic one which tries to strike a balance to cater for the needs of different groups. However, the majority is the main focus. How does the public feel when they see sex workers soliciting clients on the streets? And how do women feel when they are mistaken for sex workers and harassed by clients? The public interest should be the priority.

Furthermore, the relaxation of the regulations may not be effective in helping sex workers.

In Taiwan, the sex industry was legalised in 1958. It does not help the sex workers to survive. Worse still, there are more sex workers being manipulated by the triads. The legalisation was then abolished in 2001. However, the mistake is beyond remedy. Society is deteriorating.

What the government should do is to assist sex workers to quit the job. No one wants to be a sex worker even if they fail to make a living in another way. Welfare and aid for poor women should be promoted rather than further encouraging the sex industry.

Novia Fong

Q How can Hong Kong promote safe cycling?

Your correspondent David Newbury recently made the outrageous suggestion that the minibus driver found guilty of dangerous driving causing death is being needlessly blamed and used as a convenient scapegoat by society for the death of a cyclist in Sai Kung Country Park last November.

Is he seriously suggesting that the driver has been sentenced to eight months' imprisonment without good reason? Is he now claiming to know better than a Hong Kong judge? Can Mr Newbury likewise explain the 'chain of events' that led to the crash that killed passengers when a minibus drove on the wrong side of the road and into a truck coming in the opposite direction on Sha Tau Kok Road a week after the incident in Sai Kung. Did the truck driver contribute to the crash?

Of course he did not, and it is perfectly correct for society to blame people who break the law for results of their actions. Why is it, according to Mr Newbury's line of argument, that when a cyclist is involved in a collision with a car the cyclist must be culpable? I still do not understand how Mr Newbury knew this cyclist was going to crash and why the driver was not to blame. Or is it me as a member of society that is stupid and him, inferred by his owns words presumably not part of society, that is so clever?

John Tonks, Ma On Shan

In his letter (Talkback, Wednesday), John Tonks alleges that I said it is easier to avoid a car driving on the wrong side of the road than a cyclist. I did not say any such thing.

In the passage of my letter (Talkback, Tuesday) to which he is apparently referring, I was responding to his assertion that if a car had been in the same position as the cyclist at the time he was killed in a country park, then the car would have crashed into the minibus, and to his sarcastic remark that if Mr Newbury had been driving, he maybe would not have hit the minibus because he has supernatural powers. What Mr Tonks has to say might carry more weight if he did not scorn other correspondents and if he read and digested what they say.

Colin Campbell, Mid-Levels

Q Is the Buildings Department too slow in clearing up illegal rooftop structures?

In response to the letters in Talkback (October 19 and 20) on illegal rooftop structures, I would like to explain the enforcement policy that the Buildings Department has adopted to tackle the problem of unauthorised building works.

According to a policy formulated in 2001 after public consultation, the Buildings Department has been taking vigorous measures to remove more such works in the city. With the launch of various clearance operations, we have removed more than 180,000 unauthorised building work in the past five years, let alone the target of 40,000 for 2006. In comparison, the department was able to remove an average of only about 4,500 unauthorised building work each year in the 1990s.

To deal with serious fire risk due to illegal rooftop structures, we have instigated a major operation to remove all such structures on 4,500 single-staircase buildings before the end of 2007.

So far we have removed 80 per cent of the illegal structures on such target buildings. Knocking down somebody's home is not a simple matter, although we use professional social workers to help.

Nonetheless, the department will act decisively and prosecute those owners who fail to comply with the removal orders without reasonable excuse.

The department has set up patrol teams to stop new unauthorised work or rebuilding.

In response to public complaints about unauthorised building works under construction, our teams will arrive within 48 hours to enforce the law. Apart from this, we will immediately issue a removal order if the work is found to constitute an obvious or imminent danger to life or property.

For illegal works not warranting immediate enforcement action, the department may issue statutory warning notices, which can be registered in the property's title.

Warning notices will remain in the Land Registry until the owners voluntarily remove the unauthorised structures. This will raise community awareness of such illegal work as a liability.

Tsang Cheung-chuen, Assistant Director of Buildings

On other matters ...

Congratulations to the government for being free and easy with our tax money. Some 600,000 subsidised public housing tenants are set to get a month's free rent and an 11.6 per cent rent cut over two years at a cost of nearly HK$4 billion.

In the past two years my mortgage interest rate has doubled and I, along with all hardworking taxpayers, am subsidising public tenants to the tune of 90 per cent. Since the government is so keen to provide relief, I am sure it will see fit to pay my mortgage for a month and subsidise 11.6 per cent of my mortgage payments over two years.

If you really want equality and an egalitarian society, then put your money where your mouth is.

Bernard Lo, Mid-Levels

I'm writing in response to Charlie Dunn's letter published on October 20 about idling engines in a small street. Studying in one of the schools there, I have to inhale the disgusting dark fumes every day. Sometimes the minibus drivers leave the motors running all day long, no matter whether they are waiting for passengers or just taking a rest in the cabin.

They even sleep with the wonderful air conditioners on full power while the pedestrians, who certainly include thousands of students, suffer the bad air quality.

It will be delightful for students if the government can do something, for instance, penalise the irresponsible drivers. But until then, all we can do is hold our breath.

Calton Luk, Kowloon Bay