Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am not a scientist nor a dentist and do not know all the facts on fluoridation. The onus is on the Government to refute the serious questions that have been raised in this debate and by campaigners on this. I pay tribute to the campaigners against fluoridation for their persistence. It is their action and determination that have forced this debate to happen.

It is clear that this issue does not just concern a few campaigners, but that they have compiled a serious body of evidence, and the onus is on the Government to refute that. The arguments have been rehearsed clearly. First, why has the rest of Europe and why have many other countries in the world removed fluoride from their water? For the most part, they have removed it on ethical grounds, on the basis that people should not be forced to ingest fluoride in their water without their prior agreement. These are strong grounds. At the least, there must be a national debate in which people decide whether they want fluoride in their water, but that debate has not happened here and the people have not made the decision. In Sweden, Arvid Carlsson, a winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine, convinced the Swedish Parliament to stop fluoridation in Swedish water on those ethical grounds, pointing out that it should not be done without the permission of the people.

Serious health issues have also been raised in regard to fluoridation. It is believed fluoride can cause fluorosis, is bad for the teeth, is bad for bone development, affects the thyroid and is associated with diabetes, neurological and gastrointestinal illnesses. These results are from official studies conducted in the United States. I do not know if this evidence is conclusive, but it raises serious questions. The default position should be to follow the precautionary rule, meaning we should not do anything that may have adverse effects unless the evidence is compiled, we have had the debate and have heard all sides of the argument. We have not done any of that. At the least, we should remove fluoride from our water until we have had that discussion. If the Government feels so strongly that we should have fluoride in our water, let it make the case. We should have a full and open debate at committees and elsewhere and should allow the public to participate in that debate. I find it telling and quite conclusive that other countries have removed fluoride from their water without causing adverse effects on dental health. Ireland does not have better dental health than countries that do not fluoridate their water. Therefore, there is no sustainable argument for continuing to fluoridate our water.

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