How will employers treat staff who can't do without a cigarette after thesmoking ban is implemented this month? Iva Pocock reports.

'From what I can see 90 per cent of businesses out there, no matter what they do, aren't catering properly for smokers yet," says Declan Sherlock of M&G, an engineering company that supplies smoking shelters and wall-mounted cigarette bins. "But I think it's going to change once the ban is enforced."

Sherlock is hoping that when smoking at work is outlawed, on March 29th, employers will rush to install his equipment, to accommodate staff who can't make it through the day without a cigarette. How realistic is he being? What kinds of facilities are already in place? And what else are companies doing to deal with the new law?

Employers are not obliged to provide outdoor smoking areas for their staff under the legislation introduced by the Minister for Health and Children, Micheál Martin. If they do they must ensure that at least half of the shelters' perimeters are open to the elements. There certainly doesn't seem to be a stampede to build them. Ulster Bank, which banned smoking more than a year ago, provides no shelters or outdoor ashtrays for its employees and customers. "We don't encourage them to smoke near our buildings or branches," says a spokeswoman, "but we do encourage them to give up."

Superquinn takes a similar approach. Although it plans to designate smoking areas in its car parks, equipping them with ashtrays for staff and customers, shelters would be an "increased encouragement" for smokers, according to Jenny Flynn, a health-and-safety specialist at the supermarket chain.

Last year 35 per cent of Superquinn employees smoked, more than the national average. In response the company has offered its staff cost-price copies of the latest book by Allen Carr, the US quit-smoking guru. "We've found it very successful," says Flynn. "There's a huge amount of people have bought the books. I've given up too, as with the health-and-safety badge it's not a good thing to have a fag in one hand." The company plans another survey to monitor the effect of its campaign in about six weeks. "Superquinn's attitude is that this is not just a work situation, it's a life-changing thing."

Superquinn may also have its reputation to think of. As John Douglas of the Mandate union puts it: "In the retail trade I don't think it'd be appropriate to see 20 sales assistants smoking under a shelter and then have them come in handling your goods."

It's a factor that has influenced the thinking of the Southern Health Board, on Martin's home turf. Although it has yet to decide whether to put up smoking shelters - it has provided Portakabins in some places - it has agreed to ban smoking in entrances and exits. "We realise that, as a flagship employer, it gives the wrong message not to do so," says Christine Eckersley of the board.

Like Ulster Bank and Superquinn, it is also helping staff to quit. It provides one-to-one counselling, support groups and information packs, as well as cost-price nicotine-replacement therapy. Eckersley says that, although some people can go cold turkey, evidence suggests that people are up to twice as likely to give up smoking when they are supported.

RTÉ is still deciding whether to install outdoor shelters to replace the smoking sections of its canteens. Diageo Ireland, another large organisation, says it has been looking at a variety of approaches for replacing its smoking rooms.

Other companies stress they've had no-smoking policies for quite a while, and not just in anticipation of the ban. "For most businesses and industry smoking has been very much restricted, not just because of the ban but for hygiene and safety," says Tony Briscoe of IBEC. "A lot more were anticipating the ban in January and went non-smoking at the beginning of the year."

Lakeland Dairies, for example, the Cavan-based food company, already has "very serious smoking restrictions", according to a spokesman. Microsoft says it went no-smoking some time ago, although it has smoking areas in non-working areas such as covered car parks and outside areas. Since January it has also had a scheme for staff who want to quit.

Dublin City Council removed the smoking sections from its canteens in April last year, to the dismay of some employees, who flooded the internal bulletin board with complaints, according to one official. Unions there say they haven't had complaints from members who are smokers, however. "Most people accept the ban, if somewhat begrudgingly," says Douglas.

SIPTU's health-and-safety officer, Sylvester Cronin, says companies must be co-operating with smokers as he hasn't been contacted by disgruntled members. "While there's nothing in the regulations to say employers have to provide facilities they'd be very foolish not to, because you're dealing with an addiction," he says. As a former smoker he understands "the anxiety" but is adamant that smokers mustn't be driven underground, "creating serious fire hazards" by smoking in stationery stores or other dangerous places.

Although employers can, as a minimum, provide outdoor ashtrays, Robin Chedgey of Architectural Hardware says his firm's increase in inquiries has been not from offices but from hotels and fast-food outlets, which want to enable their customers to stub out on the way in.

And even shelters may eventually help people to kick the habit. Rene Wubben of Norfolk Line Containers in Waterford says its shelter is little used, "as people have tended to give up rather than stand outside in the cold".

For the extravagant no-smoking company it's always possible to order a customised shelter from MCC Engineering, in Tallaght. "We've upmarket models for front of house and not-so-chic models for the backyard," says Micky McCann, a partner. "We used to do bike sheds which doubled up as smoking shelters, but they've gone highfalutin now."

You can get more details about the ban from www.smokefreeatwork.ie

When the smoke clears

These days we meet in the Irish Times smoking room like prisoners on death row awaiting the day of execution. And as the deadline for the stub-out gets closer we smoking siblings get fewer.

Ours was one of the first private offices in Dublin to ban smoking, consigning us addicts to a fuggy corner of the building. Ironically, the person who demanded this, forcing a staff vote, is now one of our lung-scarred number, gathering for a chat, a laugh and a hit of nicotine during the day.

A bonding has grown up in the cigarette confraternity. One might even say an elitism. We are sometimes joined by reformed or non-smokers who freely admit that smokers are better crack than non-smokers. Generosity and friendliness are the trademarks of the smoker, they say, and who are we to disagree?

The quality of conversation is high and the arguments passionate in our smoke-filled, companionable space. We shun hierarchy; the most junior and the most senior of us meet, chat and exchange information.

A female colleague, just back from New York, had consolation for us last week. She had been there many times before its anti-smoking laws came into being. This time, she said, forced out of pubs on to cold pavements to smoke, she met more people, decent people, than in all her previous visits.

But a bitterness has crept in. Our unions, it is argued, should treat us as they would any other afflicted members, helping us to cope with what looks like serious discrimination. No government should be allowed to treat a minority as we are being treated.

As expulsion day draws closer the ideas being generated in the smoking room are becoming more ingenious. The best suggestion is that we hire a bedroom in a nearby hotel, so we can smoke in an area that has been excluded from the Minister for Health and Children's draconian laws. Another idea is an open-topped Portakabin on the roof, where we could blast away in the company of seagulls and sparrowhawks.

In the meantime we are compiling a list of notorious non-smokers. Top of the chart is Adolf Hitler. We also discovered that Britain's most notorious serial killer, Harold Shipman, was anti-smoking.

It's unlikely a Support Your Local Smoker campaign will change anything, but in the best tradition of the smoking room we'll keep dragging on.