The British Medical Association (BMA) has called on the Northern Secretary, Mr Paul Murphy, to declare a total workplace prohibition on smoking after some 7,000 Northern Ireland civil servants returned to their offices yesterday knowing they could no longer light up in government buildings.
A senior Northern Ireland Office civil servant hinted that the North might follow the example of the Republic and ban smoking in all work environments.
The smoking ban, which applies to all of the North's 30,000 civil servants, began on New Year's Day, but because of the public holiday on Monday only came into effect yesterday. An in-house survey conducted four years ago indicates that one in four officials smoke, which suggests that about 7,000 of them must now do without the weed in and directly outside their departmental offices.
Hitherto designated areas were set aside for smokers, but now they are prohibited from smoking anywhere in British government buildings in the North.
Unlike the Republic the ban only applies to civil servants. The BMA's Northern Ireland Council chairman, Dr Brian Patterson, said that the British government should not delay any longer in introducing a ban on smoking in enclosed public places. "For each two weeks we put off this decision we allow yet another person to die," he said.
The North's Department of Health is currently carrying out a consultation programme to ascertain whether there is public support for a more general workplace smoking ban.
