Trinity has begun life as a tobacco-free campus, the College has announced, five years after the idea was first mooted and three years since tobacco-free zones were first introduced on campus.
In an email sent to staff and students, Dr David McGrath, the Director of the College Health Service, confirmed that aside from three designated smoking zones – around the perimeter of College Park, on the Kinsella podium outside the 24-hour library and in an area near the back of the Buttery – the campus will be tobacco free from today.
In December, the College Board approved the introduction of a smoke-free campus at a cost of almost €36,000. It marked the culmination of years of campaigning and a Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) vote in which 71 per cent of students voted for a set of proposals made by Tobacco Free Trinity.
Today, on National No Smoking Day, McGrath thanked “everyone who has supported the five year process of becoming tobacco free”.
“This policy”, he said, “asks our Community to refrain from smoking indoors and outdoors on campus out of consideration for others and to achieve a cleaner campus for all”.
McGrath described a number of campaigns that have been launched to support the policy, including a “No ifs or butts” initiative that aims to tackle the environmental damage caused by cigarette butt litter.
The Tobacco Free Trinity campaign began in 2013. Between 2013 and 2014, the group sought opinions from undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as staff. In an online survey, around 21 per cent of staff, 26 per cent of postgraduates and 41 per cent of undergraduates opposed the initiative.
Since then, College has been striving to build consensus on the issue. It has not always proved straightforward, however, with many of the proposals proving contentious among students.
Before this year’s plebiscite, in which 1,453 students voted on the issue, TCDSU had held contradictory stances, having originally opposed a smoke-free campus before changing its mandate in 2015 to support the introduction of smoke-free zones in “identified problem areas on campus”. Then, in 2017, students voted to remove the union’s mandate at a meeting of TCDSU’s council.
Trinity is the second university in Ireland to become a smoke-free campus, after the University of Limerick (UL) went tobacco free last June. In 2016, National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG) introduced two smoke-free zones on its campus.
