MINISTER FOR Health Mary Harney said she would seek Government approval later this month to introduce legislation restricting the use of sunbeds.
She said the proposed Public Health (Sunbeds) Bill would include a ban on use of sunbeds by those under 18; a ban on the sale or hire of sunbeds to anyone under 18 and a ban on the use of sunbeds in unsupervised premises.
Campaigners and opposition parties have criticised the delay in introducing the ban, saying it appeared it would not be in force for a number of months at least.
The summer is traditionally the busiest time for sunbed usage, as people seek a tan before they go on holidays or try to maintain the tan when they return home.
A survey yesterday showed 43 per cent of people favour an absolute ban on sunbeds while a further 37 per cent are in favour of a ban for those under 16, new research has found.
It also found that 4 per cent of Irish adults use sunbeds, compared with 9 per cent in 2003. Moreover, it showed that sunbed-users were now more likely to be working class, rather than middle class, as they had been in the past.
The Behaviour Attitudes research was commissioned by the Irish Cancer Society, which held a press conference yesterday to outline details of a Private Members’ Bill due to be launched next week in the Dáil by Labour’s Jan O’Sullivan and in the Seanad by Fine Gael’s Frances Fitzgerald.
Ms O’Sullivan welcomed Ms Harney’s announcement, which was made just before the press conference, but said the legislation was a long time coming and had been promised since 2006. She said the Minister should adopt the Private Members’ Bill to save time, instead of having another Bill drawn up.
The Irish Cancer Society’s head of advocacy, Kathleen O’Meara, said it appeared that it would be autumn at the earliest before the legislation was passed.
The new legislation would require the placing of warning signs in sunbed premises and warning labels on the sunbeds.
It would introduce enforcement provisions and penalties for non-compliance, but would also allow exemptions for sunbed-use for medical purposes.
The survey of 1,000 adults was conducted in April and May and found that almost nine in 10 of all sunbed-users were women.
Almost 20 per cent of sunbed-users said they used the beds once a week or more. The research found that sunbed usage had halved in the younger adult age group but had slightly increased in the 35-49-year-old group, when compared with 2007 figures.
About one-third of users starting using them when they were under 19, while a further 29 per cent started between the age of 20 and 24.
The percentage of users from a working-class background increased from 35 per cent to 59 per cent between 2005 and 2010, while middle-class users fell from 45 per cent to 36 per cent.
Some 38 per cent of users said they did not see guidelines posted or receive any verbal information on sunbed usage from the sunbed operator.
