Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

Radon gas is the most significant, secret and deadly killer after smoking. I do not see how the Taoiseach can say that the solution is ventilation and advice. It is exclusion precautions that must be installed, not ventilation, at a cost of some €10,000 per unit. The cost of treating a cancer patient could be €1 million. My colleague, Deputy Stagg, established a remedial grant scheme but the Government abolished it in 1997. It is not true to say that the only solution to be offered is free advice and a recommendation that doors should be kept open during the summer. The necessity is to retrofit exclusionary precautions that will deal with this silent menace.

Some 100,000 houses are at risk. This represents a significant number of people and many of those householders are unable to afford the cost of the measures I have described. Does the Taoiseach continue to believe that advice and recommendations to keep doors open during the summer are the best we can do? Will the Government re-establish the grant scheme in place until 1997, which was introduced by Deputy Stagg and continued by Deputy McManus?

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