A ban on sunbed use by under 18-year-olds moved a step closer today as Minister for Health Mary Harney said she would seek Government approval later this month to introduce the legislation.
She said the proposed Public Health (Sunbeds) Bill would include a ban on the use of sunbeds by under 18 year-olds; a ban on the sale or hire of sunbeds to anyone under 18 and a ban on the use of sunbeds in unsupervised premises. The new legislation would also 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.
Ms Harney made the announcement just before the Irish Cancer Society held a press conference to outline details of a Private Members' Bill which will be launched next week in 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 but said the legislation had been promised since 2006. She said the minister should adopt the Private Members' Bill, instead of having another Bill drawn up.
Irish Cancer Society's head of advocacy Kathleen O'Meara said the delay in regulating the sector had been frustrating. "All that needs to happen now is for the minister to move on it," she said.
The society also revealed the findings of research it commissioned through Behaviour & Attitudes, which showed that 80 per cent of people favoured some form of ban on sunbeds. Some 43 per cent were in favour of a complete ban while 37 per cent favoured a ban for under-16 year olds.
The survey, conducted in April and May, found that four per cent of over 15-year olds, or 140,000 people, use sunbeds. This is a significant reduction when compared with 2003, when nine per cent of the population said they used sunbeds.
Almost 20 per cent of sunbed users said they used them once a week or more. The research found that usage levels had halved in the younger adult age group but had slight increased in the 35-49 year-old age group, when compared with 2007 statistics.
