Irish Rail brings in vaping ban
IRISH Rail has banned vaping in its trains and stations.
E- cigarette users will no longer be able to inhale the nicotine vapour, a substitute for tobacco, on all Irish rail services. Officials with the rail firm feared that smokers could get confused and spark up indoors.
THE ‘smoking’ of electronic cigarettes has been banned on all Irish trains and Dubl i n’s Dart service, i t has emerged.
The habit, known as ‘vaping’, i nvolves i nhaling a nicotineinfused vapour – and Irish Rail has banned it from any places that cigarettes are prohibited following passenger complaints.
The company is now putting up posters in stations and on trains, alerting people to the new rule.
The ban on the e - cigarettes was brought in last month. With an estimated 45,000 users of ecigarettes nationwide, thousands of rail users are expected to be affected by the ban.
Along with the concerns from passengers, Irish Rail chiefs also expressed fears that smokers would think it was okay to light up if they saw a person vaping.
An Irish Rail spokesman said: ‘You’ll be able to “vape” in smoking areas – in places that aren’t covered over, like outdoor platforms where you can smoke traditional cigarettes.
‘We brought this policy in recently as a result of feedback from customers who were uneasy about people “vaping” in a carriage or a covered area in a station,’ the Irish Rail spokesman added.
‘Customers’ concerns were that even though it’s a vapour, it’s still coming into their atmosphere, and it’s not a situation where you can step away when you’re on a train.
‘The other side of it is, some of these e-cigarettes are very, very like traditional cigarettes so it may lead to some ambiguity about what a person is actually smoking.’ The spokesman added that ‘there are still unanswered questions about what comes out of these devices so we just made the decision that we don’t permit it on any of our services or at any stations under cover’.
‘We have a very high rate of com-
‘It may lead to some ambiguity’
pliance with the smoking ban and we very rarely have people smoking on trains or stations and that’s the way we’d like to keep it,’ the Irish Rail official said.
‘Nearly all the railway companies across Europe and the UK have a similar policy with replacement cigarettes.’
However, a spokesman for the Electronic Cigarette Industry Trade Association, which promotes the use of e-cigarettes as an alternative to smoking, hit out at the move. They said: ‘That it would make people think they could smoke is a very poor argument.
‘It’s almost instantly obvious the difference between vapour and smoke because you don’t get the smell of smoke, which not only permeates rapidly, but it smells horrific – whereas vapour disperses very quickly. We don’t think it’s a defensible argument.’
E-cigarettes were recently banned for under-18s by Health Minister James Reilly, who plans to bring in further regulations.
Expressing concern about the ecigarettes, which have become a popular substitute for people trying to quit smoking, Dr Reilly said: ‘They might be safer than regular tobacco i nsofar as they don’t have all the other toxins in them but they still, I believe.’
Celebrities such as Rolling Stone guitarist Ronnie Wood are often photographed with e-cigarettes.
There are now believed to be 45,000 e-cigarette users in Ireland, according to retailers in the booming market. And some say business has doubled in the past year alone, although official figures are not available.
Some anti-smoking campaigners have attacked them as trying to ‘normalise’ the habit again.
A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘Minister Reilly intends to regulate the e- cigarette market. This will include banning their sale to under-18s... Minister Reilly is currently reviewing the evidence on the potential harm and the potential benefits of e-cigarettes before deciding the best approach to their wider regulation.’ A HSE spokesman said: ‘Based on the 24,000 people who used our online, interactive QUIT plan, an estimated 480,000 attempts to quit have been made in Ireland since June 2011.’
The number of smokers has fallen by 28 per cent in the past seven years, leaving around 800,000 in the country.