Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senators Norris and Quinn for tabling this important motion on an issue that has generated a great deal of controversy. I would like to outline the Fianna Fáil position on this. We believe that fluoridation is a public health measure that is good for the oral health of all age groups in society. The then Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Micheál Martin, launched the final report of the forum on fluoridation in September 2002, to which Senator Burke referred. He established the forum in 2000 to independently review the fluoridation of public pipe water supplies and a programme of research was undertaken on behalf of health boards in the area and to make recommendations. The forum largely comprised people with expert knowledge from a diverse range of backgrounds such as public health, dental health, food safety, environmental protection, ethics, water quality, heath promotion and the consumer and environmental sectors. The forum took a participatory and evidence-based approach, striving to ensure balance between participants on both sides of the debate, and it went out of its way to engage those opposed to water fluoridation.

The former Minister subsequently established the Irish expert body on fluorides and health in April 2004. The body monitors new and emerging issues in fluorides and its effect on health and related matters. It is satisfied, having studied current peer reviewed scientific evidence worldwide, that water fluoridation causes no ill effects to the health of adults or children. Given the policy has been reviewed by the forum on fluoridation and the expert body continues to provide impartial, evidence-based expert advice on fluoridation, some people suggest it is not necessary to commission a further review but because of the controversy generated by the issue, I am leaning towards the wording of the motion, which is about the review of, as opposed to the cessation of, the practice of fluoridation.

On the issue of testing for fluoride in Ireland, under the Fluoridation of Water Supplies Regulations 2007, water service authorities are required to arrange for the testing on a daily basis of the fluoride content of water to which fluoride has been added. There is much more going on in the context of tests on which I am sure the Minister of State will elaborate. To date there has been a significant reduction in the proportions of decayed, missing and filled teeth in children living in areas supplied by fluoridated drinking water in Ireland. The balance of scientific evidence worldwide confirms that water fluoridation at the optimal level does not cause any ill effects and continues to be safe and effective in protecting the oral health of all age groups. However, water fluoridation is less common in Europe where fluoridated salt is often available as an alternative, although some populations are supplied with naturally fluoridated public water.

Perhaps I can deal with what has been the water fluoridation controversy. It arises from moral, ethical, political and safety concerns regarding the fluoridation of public water supplies. It occurs mainly in English speaking countries as continental Europe has ceased water fluoridation. That those opposed argue that water fluoridation may cause serious health problems is not effective enough to justify the costs and has a dosage that cannot be precisely controlled. Opposition to fluoridation has existed since its initiation in the 1940s. I am thankful to Wikipedia for this information. During the 1950s and 1960s some opponents of water fluoridation suggested that fluoridation was a communist plot to undermine public health. It was more or less people who might have been on the far right of American politics who saw the communist plot as being an introduction to socialism - that awful thing they sometimes talk about in America. I can never quite understand what it is our friends on the Republican side are getting at.