Hospital seeks to ban smoking outside building

THE head of one of Cork’s biggest hospitals wants new bylaws to ban smoking in the public areas outside the facility.

Pat Madden, chief executive of the Mercy University Hospital in Cork, has written to city manager Tim Lucey asking him to consider the move to in the interest of people’s health and to protect the ethos of the smoke-free building.

Mr Madden said the hospital’s executive management board has “major concern” about the use by smokers of the public footpaths and streets around the hospital.