A COMPLETE ban on smoking in public areas in Northern Ireland will be announced by the British government tomorrow.

The prohibition will not come into effect until April 2007, a time-lag needed to allow primary legislation to be passed and debated in Westminster. The delay may be because a similar ban will be introduced across the UK on the same date. The devolved administration in Scotland is to introduce a complete ban next April.

Two versions of a partial ban have been ruled out for Northern Ireland on equality grounds. One proposal was for smoking to be banned in bars that served food but allowed in those which did not. Shaun Woodward, the Northern Ireland health minister, has been advised that this could give rise to legal challenges because one group of bar workers would be protected from the risk of passive smoking while another would remain exposed to it.

The so-called “smoking carriage” proposal, allowing a room to be set aside for smokers, has also been rejected by the minister. Under this plan, staff would have entered smoking rooms only to clean up after hours.

It was also ruled out on equality grounds, particularly since staff would have had to enter the smoking environment if there were problems such as a fight or an accident.

Northern Ireland’s civil service already operates a no-smoking policy and the minister believes it is wrong to treat office workers differently from catering staff and blue collar employees. He will stress that local MPs can move amendments to the legislation if they wish.

Woodward’s decision follows months of consultation in which it emerged that 91% of the public supported a total ban similar to the one already in force in the republic. Smokefree Northern Ireland, a lobbying coalition of 41 statutory, private and voluntary organisations, has co-ordinated the successful campaign for smoke-free workplaces, winning the support of all major political parties.

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) had indicated that it believed test cases could be brought if groups of workers were treated differently.

Professor Monica McWilliams, the NIHRC’s chief commissioner, has said that it is “the right of all bar workers in Northern Ireland to protection from exposure to smoke”. She added: “The government has ratified an international treaty on this topic and so is obliged to adopt and implement legislative or other measures providing effective protection.”

Victoria Creasy of the Health Promotion Agency said that a partial ban was completely unacceptable because it would “effectively treat many bar workers as second-class citizens”.

When the ban was introduced in the republic last year there were fears in the bar trade that it would lead to southern drinkers taking their custom across the border. It was also predicted that major functions such as wedding receptions would move north to beat the ban.

Last night hoteliers on both sides of the border said that the effect had been negligible.

John Farrell, manager of the four-star Everglades hotel in Londonderry, said: “People generally prefer a smoke-free environment to a smoking environment and that even includes smokers.”

At the Ballymascanlon hotel just south of the border in Ravensdale, Co Louth, Oliver Quinn, the owner, said: “The smoking ban has not affected business at all. I did more weddings last year than I did any year since we opened in 1946.”

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