Health groups have welcomed the announcement by the North's health minister Shaun Woodward of a smoking ban in Northern Ireland.
The smoking lobby group Forest, (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco) however, said the decision was appalling.
Mr Woodward yesterday confirmed that from April 2007 smoking in all public places and workplaces would be prohibited. He is to decide in the coming months whether smoking should continue to be allowed in prisons and psychiatric institutions.
Cancer Research Northern Ireland's chief executive, Prof Alex Markham, said the ban would witness the most "significant health improvements Northern Ireland has seen in decades".
However, Simon Clark, director of the smokers' lobby group Forest said Mr Woodward was copying the "punitive legislation introduced in Ireland and now Scotland".
