Ms Elaine Dennehy:

I thank the committee very much for this opportunity. I also hope that this can help, in many ways, the others who are suffering around the world from light emitting diode, LED, sensitivity and artificial light sensitivity. I have been made ill from LEDs since 2007. It is more than a sensitivity; it is a disability. I am disabled by my environment, like so many others, and excluded from society. This is also an accessibility issue.

It makes more sense for me to start from today and work my way back, as briefly as I can. In doing so, I hope committee members will understand the enormity of the situation and the devastating impact it is having on my life. The straw that has broken the camel’s back is the change over from halogen to LED traffic lights and pedestrian lights, in addition to the newer driver feedback displays in our town. LED is continually evolving and this new form is something my brain cannot cope with. I cannot get into town. If I do so, I will suffer the consequences. It only takes a moment’s exposure to these particular LED sources, even from far away, for the pain and symptoms I experience to continue to escalate for up to two days.

The most distressing symptom from these newer sources is a burning sensation in the occipital area of my brain. It does not start immediately and it builds in the hours that follow. It is a chain reaction and not just a moment's discomfort at the time. This is the final straw as I am already in constant pain on a daily basis due to the LED in my environment from passing cars, farm machinery working in the fields around me with flashing LED beacons or neighbours near and far with outdoor lights on during the day. Even some LED lights inside others’ houses are problematic. Wavelengths of light travel many kilometres. They are visible and invisible. We can see LED from space so it makes sense that someone sensitive, like me, is affected from hundreds of metres away without seeing the source directly.

If someone told me this would be my life 14 years ago, I would have found it very difficult to believe. I can only speak about my experience but there are so many others in the same boat. It first started in 2007, when I opened a mini Nintendo DS game backlit with LED. I was immediately ill and ran to the bathroom. I had got a searing headache that quickly escalated to migraine with eye pressure. LED was easy to avoid then and I did not think much more about it. I travelled in Australia for two years after that, where there were a few supermarkets I could not go to due to the overhead lighting from which I experienced similar symptoms. On my return in 2009, I could no longer find a phone or laptop without LED or sit in some newer cars due to the LED dashes.

LED slowly crept in to most environments and by 2014 the monitors in my workplace were changed to LED. I could not tolerate them for a second. I was already working under LED lighting and living on painkillers and anti-sickness tablets. I thought that if I somehow could just keep going I would become immune, but I was wrong. I only got worse. I had no choice but to leave my job once the monitors changed. That same week, in December 2014, the sodium streetlights outside my home changed to LED so I was confined to my house at night for a year.

I moved to the countryside in late 2015 and now I find myself in the exact same position again. Due to the phasing out of all other light sources, most neighbours have gradually converted to outdoor LED. I have not seen the night sky in 16 months since September 2020. Before that, I was confined to particular areas in my garden and it would have to be for brief periods. I am now confined to the house for up to 18 hours a day in winter, with blackout material covering the windows as the wavelengths of light from distant lights come in around the blinds.

It has been many years since I have been able to go to a bar or restaurant. Shopping for essentials is as quick as possible since intense diodes lining the freezers and LED monitors on most checkouts add to the pain, but now none of that is even possible. Due to the changeover to LED pedestrian and traffic lights, and the newer feedback displays, I cannot get into town. I cannot get out of my area and into the next villages for the very same reasons. I am stuck in limbo. I am trapped on the outskirts of the town between villages. I cannot get to the GP, the vet or the shop. I am excluded from the park, the church and visiting my parents’ grave.

My eye health is perfect and I do not need sunglasses. The problem is neurological. The LEDs of today are very different from any other light source. I have been living in lockdown for many years. Most people know the relief that was felt with the easing of Covid restrictions and the toll they have taken on everyone. I may never experience that relief, as is the case for people like me who are in constant lockdown. I am exhausted. My lockdown may never end. I experience ill health around all LEDs, including blocked ears, ringing in my ears, eye pressure, head pain, headache, head pressure, nausea and migraine. Migraine is a complex neurological condition and one of the most disabling worldwide. Even a person using their phone, or their LED watch, near me can cause symptoms. What I endure from LED traffic lights, LED pedestrian lights and the newer feedback displays is intolerable. It is not worth the exposure.

A life of isolation and lockdown is the only alternative if something does not change. It is not acceptable for me or anyone to be forced to live like this for the next 50 years due to an artificial light source that has not been adequately tested. We cannot say with certainty that LEDs are safe for everyone. Life is passing me by, I cannot work or travel and I cannot visit friends or attend special occasions with family. I cannot take part in recreational activities. Some days are a complete write-off. If there are LEDs on nearby or in the distance, the pressure just continues to build in my head. I must cover up my windows again or go to a dark room. I am impacted from the minute I wake up until the minute I go to sleep. The effects are cumulative so I have to weigh up what I can tolerate; it is a negotiation.

Nothing in my life is left untouched by LEDs. Over the past few years, I have been trying to limit exposure and retain some quality of life, even though that meant being locked down at night and excluded from indoor spaces during the day. I had been scraping by, through travelling into town during quiet periods on brighter days, getting in and out of essential services as fast as possible and not stopping to speak with anyone. It was a lonely, isolating life, but now none of that is even possible. Streetlights and floodlights are generally off during the day, but there is no negotiating LED traffic and pedestrian lights and newer feedback displays. I use a 14-year-old Nokia phone and a third party has helped me to connect a modern laptop to my old TV today so I could join this meeting.

The problem is global. It is not just a concern for those who are immediately affected, like me, and are locked in blackened out homes. We do not know the long-term consequences of this light source. Senior medics have been raising concerns for years. I know people all over the world, some with perfect vision, who are getting around with blackout glasses and a walking cane. How is it morally okay to enforce a product that causes so many people ill health? The phasing out of all other light sources raises concerns for the human rights of those affected by LEDs. How do we live our lives?

Solutions to allow me access to the town during the day would include simply retaining halogen traffic lights and pedestrian lights. The bulbs are still available and the phase-out only started in September 2021. It is possible that they can be stockpiled until we know more. The older driver feedback displays on our local roads could be easily swapped with models from towns further afield. The older models were installed less than three years ago and cause me no adverse reactions. I ask to be consulted in advance over any changes so that I am not living on edge that something will change in my environment and I will need to suffer for days. Should our councils be doing impact and disability assessments before making changes on our public roads, as is expected in other countries?

I also want to mention that I understand the transition to LEDs is being done with good intentions on the basis of energy efficiency, but this adds to the frustration. Something can claim to be economical due to one measurement, but LED light is not what we believe it to be. We have not achieved what we set out to do. It was expected to generate a drop in energy consumption and light pollution, while research shows us that what is happening on a global scale is the opposite. Ecologists tell us LED light is having a devastating impact on the ecosystem, insects and wildlife. It could also be classed as hazardous waste due to the copper and nickel it leaches into landfill. It is using rare earth minerals and putting pressure on natural resources. It is not just the production process. LEDs are difficult to recycle. Even more resources will be used to recover valuable materials, if measures can eventually be put in place.

Finally, on 9 November 2021, the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions met to discuss three petitions submitted by a man in Germany regarding LEDs.

The committee called for it to be referred to the EU's IMCO stating, "Experts in medicine do raise alerts concerning the damage LED can cause. We need to be alert to what could happen." The EU's Scientific Committee for Health, Environment and Emerging Risks, SCHEER, 2018 report also acknowledges this technology is new and not enough research has been done yet.

New legislation has just been passed in 2021 to allow sensitive people like me obtain incandescent bulbs to light our homes. LightAware lobbied for this for many years. The bulbs are for domestic purposes. This is an acknowledgement in itself that something is not quite right with LED. However, how do we access civic life?

In 2017, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, showed that we can use incandescent bulbs and they can be four times more efficient than LED. Healthy light is an important ethical issue. Nobody should live in pain and suffer social exclusion due to an artificial light source.