A proposal to expand smoke-free zones, which was brought by Tobacco free Trinity and due to be discussed at today’s meeting of Board, has been taken off the agenda.
The proposal came at a time when neither Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) nor the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) had a defined stance on the issue. Both outgoing and incoming presidents of the two unions are attending today’s meeting.
In an email to The University Times, Martina Mullen, the College’s Health Promotion Officer said: “We’re not sure what the implications are for now.”
Tobacco free Trinity prepared a report to be presented at Board. In it, it was recommended that the College discourage visitors from smoking and monitor levels of smoking outside the 1937 Reading Room.
The initiative to implement smoke-free areas on campus has seen three areas designated as smoke-free zones since July 2016. Currently the College Health Centre, the Sports Centre and the entrance to the Arts Block are considered smoke-free zones on campus.
Since the introduction of these smoke-free zones, smoking on campus has decreased by an average of 83 per cent, according to the report. This is a two-per-cent increase on the findings of last year’s report, which observed an 81 per cent decline in smoking levels between 2016 and 2017.
Fellows’ Square outside the Arts Block had the highest percentage of smokers, but this percentage is decreasing. There was a notable drop in smoking outside the Arts Block during the second term, which the report linked to the committee’s public information campaign that ran between January and March 2018.
The report also found that there was a 100 per cent compliance rate when smokers were asked to move or stop smoking by the specially trained smoke-free ambassadors.
TCDSU’s stance on smoke-free Trinity has been a contentious issue. For years the union actively opposed the tobacco-free Trinity initiative, after a referendum in 2014 in which 53 per cent of voters decided against supporting a smoke-free campus. However, the union changed its mandate in 2015 to support the introduction of smoke-free zones in “identified problem areas on campus”.
Last year, students voted to remove the union’s mandate at a meeting of TCDSU’s council, meaning that the union currently has no official stance on the initiative.
It is equally unclear how the GSU will respond to the proposal. After rejecting initial proposals for a smoke-free campus in 2014, the union has no mandate on the issue. The GSU has a memorandum of understanding with TCDSU whereby the GSU will take on TCDSU’s stance when graduate students have not voted on the issue.
