The British government has drawn up a £300,000 sterling recruitment plan to prepare for Northern Ireland's smoking ban, it was revealed tonight.
Health chiefs have created 11 new jobs to promote the looming bar on lighting up in the workplace. Pro-smokers were outraged by the amount being spent on the scheme, which will also involve dealing with businesses.
Former Belfast Lord Mayor Bob Stoker said: "It's crazy to send ratepayers' money up in smoke with positions like this."
The jobs are part of an 11-month project to strengthen compliance at work and enclosed public places covered by the ban which comes into effect next April. Funding was provided by the Department of Health, with Omagh District Council chosen to carry out the recruitment process.
In a trawl notice issued to all staff, the authorities are to appoint a Smoke Free Environments Project Manager on a £35,000 salary pro rata.
Whoever is recruited will lead environmental health preparations for the introduction of smoke-free legislation. The job, based at a district council office, also involves overseeing an educational and advice advisory service.
Applications for a Smoke Free Marketing Officer on a wage of up to £30,800 are being sought too. That job is to work with Northern Ireland District Councils to emphasise to businesses to benefits the ban will bring.
And nine Environments Officers are to be appointed as well, working in Belfast, Antrim, Lisburn, Omagh, Derry, Coleraine, Ards, Newry and Mourne, and Craigavon. Each of them will be on salaries of up to £27,000.
All of the posts may be filled on a secondment basis for permanent staff. Any temporary workers recruited will be offered a contract for the duration of the project.
Interviews being run by the Western Group Environmental Health Service, are to start next month. But Mr Stoker, himself a smoker, was scathing in his assessment of the scheme. Council staff are exposed to toxic waste at dump sites yet being told they can't light up, he claimed.
The Ulster Unionist councillor added: "This is the anti-smoking police coming in now when this money could be better spent elsewhere.
"I have no problem with a ban in closed spaces, but it's in open areas where it doesn't make sense.
"The cost of actually implementing this would be better spent on prevention rather than punishment." A spokeswoman for Omagh District Council said no-one was available for comment tonight.