A code of practice to protect hotel workers from the effects of smoking in bedrooms was dismissed yesterday by SIPTU as "like something from a Bull Island script".
The proposed code was set out in a protocol presented by the Irish Hotels Federation to the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, at a recent meeting,
It suggests that housekeeping staff should be provided with surgical masks and, where necessary, should open the windows of bedrooms and return to service them after 30 minutes.
It also proposes that there should be no smoking in a bedroom for two hours before it is serviced by a staff member.
Mr Jack Nash, national industrial secretary of SIPTU, said this was equivalent to "the old joke about having to take your medicine two hours before you wake up".
The protocol also requires that guests who order room service should be asked to refrain from smoking "until after room service delivery".
"Alternatively, hand room service tray to guest at entrance door to room," it says.
Mr Nash said the code was both unworkable and unenforceable, and claimed Mr Martin had been "sold a pup" by the Irish Hotels Federation.
Subsequent to receiving the code, the Minister announced that hotel bedrooms, as well as prison and Garda cells, psychiatric hospitals, nursing homes and hospices, would be exempt from the proposed ban on smoking in the workplace.
However, a spokeswoman for Mr Martin said yesterday that the exemption of hotel bedrooms had nothing to do with the protocol proposed by the Irish Hotels Federation.
Rather, the decision to explicitly exclude hotel rooms had been taken in the interests of clarity, given they might have been exempt anyway as dwelling places.
It had also been considered that a ban on smoking in bedrooms would be unenforceable, thus undermining the wider ban.
Mr Martin expects to have his updated anti-smoking regulations ready today, following further consultations this morning between his Department and the Attorney General's Office, the spokeswoman said.
It is expected that guest house and bed-and-breakfast bedrooms will be specifically excluded from the ban.
