Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

However, not all families come through that. Often, when a person is going through treatment he does not necessarily think of the effects on a wider circle. The process immediately affects a man's wife, children, mother, brothers and sisters. This is what is being sold, mainly to young ladies in their early 20s. They come in and get under the sunbeds. They put their skin into an oven, a little like a chicken, and get it burned. Ten or 15 years later they get diagnosed with cancer. Is it really worth it? Is it really worth having a little brown skin or looking well at their debutante ball or wedding day but possibly not live to see their children grow up?

Melanoma cancer, as the Irish Cancer Society continuously points out, is a killer. Using sunbeds amounts to playing Russian roulette. The odds are stacked against Irish people because we have fairer skin and we are more prone to skin cancer. Other Deputies have read the statistics. They are the cold figures. Irish people are more likely to get skin cancer than people from many other European countries. That is a fact and that is why I welcome the Bill.

I have no wish for other families to go through what my family went through. I have no wish to see any woman become ill because she wanted to have a lovely colour on her debs day or wedding day. Is fashion that important? The more we speak about it, the better. The purpose of the Bill is to control and regulate sunbeds, but more important is the discussion to highlight the impact the problem has on our families and friends. We could go to the hospital in Elm Park and talk to anyone there about it. When I was going through my treatment, there was a woman from Carlow with three young children. The effects are felt ten or 15 years after the people being treated used sunbeds. If they had been warned or if the regulation we are proposing now had been in place at the time, many lives could have been saved. We have a responsibility not only to bring through regulation and legislation but to discuss the dangers openly and ensure safeguards are put in place such that in the middle of a young man's or young woman's life, when their families are young, they need not go through the traumatic experience of chemotherapy and surgery. I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for the time and opportunity to debate the matter today.

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