Workplace ban is ASH Ireland’s greatest success

The campaign to introduce a workplace-smoking ban was the most successful of all ASH Ireland’s campaigns. ASH Ireland set the introduction of a smokefree workplace as one of its objectives in 1994.

Over 10 years, ASH Ireland has kept this issue on the agenda, with little success in the early years. ASH Ireland then made strong presentations to successive Oireachtas committees and this sowed the seed for the change in legislation, which later emerged.

During the hard fought one-year struggle to introduce the legislation, ASH Ireland took a leading role both as advocates and participants in the media debate. When the legislation was introduced, Professor Luke Clancy, Chairman of ASH Ireland described it as “the health initiative of the century”.

Since the introduction of the legislation, ASH Ireland has met with numerous international groups advising them on how the campaign was ‘”fought and won”.

ASH Ireland continues to be concerned, that major workplaces such as prisons and psychiatric hospitals are not smokefree. The organisation is also concerned about the proliferation of large ‘gazebos’ linked to pubs, which are entirely occupied by smokers and must be serviced by bar staff.