Colleges aim to introduce campus smoking bans

NORTHSIDE based colleges DCU and IT Blanchardstown are both looking to bring in campus wide smoking bans within the next two years. 

The local colleges are looking to follow the example of both Westport College and Athlone IT as the only third level institutes in Ireland with campus wide smoking bans.

The move to ban smoking on campus is an initiative a number of colleges across Dublin are looking to bring in, including UCD and Trinity, but at DCU, Sustainability Officer Samantha Fahy feels that such a ban will have to be introduced slowly, and without aggravating staff.

“Sometimes I have to toss up which would create more uproar – bringing in car parking charges or a ban on smoking,” Fahy told Northside People.

“Students are not difficult because they are a very transient group. They move through very quickly and you have a completely new group of students every four years. 

“Staff are a much more entrenched group and what you don’t want is staff out on the pavements striking because their rights are somehow being infringed in some sort of fashion.

“DCU would not be doing this for any perceived time saving, or people going ‘oh well if you ban this, you won’t have people going on smoke breaks’; that would not be the consideration at all, it would simply be for moving towards a healthy campus for everybody.”

IT Blanchardstown Student Union President, Jason Aughney, also told Northside People that the institute currently has one designated smoking area where students can smoke on campus.

However, he added that the intention would be that within two years the campus would be completely smoke free.

The proposed smoking ban at third level institutions gained momentum earlier this month when ASH Ireland hosted a seminar to explore the expansion of smoke free colleges in Ireland.

The seminar was attended by Fianna Fail leader Micheál Martin, Professor Luke Clancy of the Tobacco Research Institute and Martin Murphy, Director of the Aviva Stadium, and was warmly received by the colleges in attendance.

However spokesman for the smokers’ group Forest Ireland, John Mallon, strongly opposed the proposed ban and criticised ASH for wanting to introduce one. 

“I don’t know who ASH think they are,” Mallon told Northside People.

“What sort of governor of our morals are these people and where do they come from?

“I’m utterly and totally against it.

“Introducing smoking bans on third level campuses would be a gross over-reaction. 

“For many, going to college or university is a rite of passage into adulthood which does not benefit from treating participants like children.”