CSO staff raise fears over mobile phone mast

Unions representing workers in the Central Statistics Office (CSO) in Dublin have called on the Government to have a mobile phone mast on top of their building switched off over health fears.

The OPW granted a licence two years ago to Hutchinson Ireland and Vodaphone Ireland to install six mobile phone antennae on the CSO office at Ardee House in Rathmines. They were activated in 2005.

Earlier this month, parents and children from St Mary's and St Louis schools near the CSO offices protested outside the Office of Public Works in St Stephen's Green over the mast.

The Civil and Public Service Union (CPSU) said today it wrote to Minister of State at the OPW Tom Parlon asking for him to increase pressure on the companies to switch the masts off.

CPSU assistant general secretary Kevin Gaughran said the CSO staff were concerned "at the potentially harmful effects on their health of their long-term exposure to electromagnetic and thermal radiation emissions from the mobile masts".

Mr Parlon wrote to the operators last October asking them to deactivate the masts in advance of a report on non-ionising radiation to be presented to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health in June. They declined to do so.

An OPW spokesman said it was not possible to force the operators to switch off the masts as to do so would be a breach of contract.

The current policy of the OPW is not to grant further licences near schools, crèches and nurseries.

There are over 5,000 dedicated mobile phone sites in the Republic, three times the number that existed in 1999. The mobile phone industry says there is no evidence of any health risks.