The body responsible for overseeing the State's mental health services may seek a derogation from the smoking ban to be introduced in all workplaces from next January.
Tomorrow's issue of The Irish Medical Timesreports that the Mental Health Commission has said it supports the ban but wants flexibility for the psychiatric services.
The Commission said specific arrangements should be made when introducing regulations banning smoking from the workplace in psychiatric in-patient units and hostels.
"The introduction of the regulations in these workplaces should be announced well in advance and specific information provided on the implications of the regulations," the Commission told the Medical Times.
And while it said signage would be appropriate in psychiatric in-patient units, it would not be appropriate for hostels. Smoking cessation programmes should also be offered and promoted to all residents in these units, the body added.
"The Commission also recommends flexibility and understanding should be exercised in implementing the regulations within the mental health services. Hostels/community residences, which are supervised by nursing and care personnel from the mental health services, although falling within the definition of a workplace, are also the homes of the residents.
"Residents should be consulted on how the regulations will be implemented in the hostel/community residence." The Medical Timesreports that Irish Psychiatric Association chairperson Dr Justin Brophy called for derogation and/or separate regulations to provide for psychiatric services.
He said many with psychiatric illness live in residences which should be defined as homes and not workplaces. He added there be flexibility for psychiatric units. Without such provisions he said the law would be "almost impossible to police".
Prisons also suffer from the anomaly of being both workplaces and places of residence. While unions representing those who work in prisons and such facilities support the smoking ban, the director general of the prison service, Mr Sean Aylward, last week called for a phasing in of the regulations.
A spokesman for the Department of Health did not rule out the possibility that the department may pay for some of anti-smoking programmes in psychiatric hospitals and prisons.
He said there was no possibility for compromise on the introduction of the ban but added that the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, was prepared to talk to the parties involved about how it would be implemented.
"The ban will apply to all workplaces," he told ireland.com. "The minister has said he will meet the interested parties to discuss concerns they may have. There are particular measures that can be used to ease people into the ban, such as Nicorette or chewing gum. It's a matter for the administrators of the institutions to come up with suggestions."
The spokesman said the department accepted there were "particular circumstances" surrounding the introduction of the ban in prisons or in other institutions because people also lived there.
He said funding for anti-smoking programmes in such places was "something that would be discussed" and which could be looked at.
"No decision has been made," he said. But he added that the department currently spends in the region of €4 million per annum in funding nicotine replacement therapy for medical card holders.