Jillian van Turnhout (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I warmly welcome the Minister to the House. This Bill is an important step towards protecting the public, and particularly children, from the extremely harmful effects of sunbed use.

I wish to acknowledge the comprehensive briefing note I received from the Irish Cancer Society, which I will be drawing on in my remarks. I have also undertaken my own research on this matter.

As the Minister has outlined, sunbeds have been linked to a variety of adverse health conditions, including eye damage, photodermatosis, photosensitivity and premature skin ageing.

Most worryingly, there is clear evidence of a link between sunbed use and skin cancer. Research published in 2009 by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer, IARC, found a 75% increase in the risk of cutaneous melanoma when people began tanning regularly before the age of 30 years.
Skin cancer is the most common cancer in Ireland. In 2010, 9,450 people were diagnosed here. Of these, 896 were diagnosed with melanoma, which is the most serious form of skin cancer. We know that there were 158 deaths from skin cancer in 2011. The incidence of melanoma in Ireland is increasing, having risen by a phenomenal 137% between 1994 and 2010. In nine out of ten cases, skin cancer is caused by ultraviolet rays from the sun or from sunbeds and, as such, it can be prevented. Reducing exposure to UV rays from the sun and sunbeds will significantly reduce the risk of developing skin cancer. According to research conducted by the Irish Cancer Society in June 2010, 140,000 people in Ireland use sunbeds on a regular basis; 88% of those who use sunbeds are women and 20% are between the ages of 15 and 24 years. It is vitally important that as legislators we do everything in our power to protect people from preventable skin cancer by legislating for and regulating the use of sunbeds. As such, I welcome many elements of this Bill, such as prohibiting operators of sunbed premises from allowing anyone under 18
years of age to use a sunbed on their premises, prohibiting the use of sunbeds in unsupervised premises, requiring sunbed operators to make users fully aware through the dissemination of prescribed information of the risks involved and requiring warning signs to be in place in the premises of all sunbed operators.
To be honest, I would have liked to see a Bill before us that completely bans the use of sunbeds. I say that after doing my research, but I understand that the Minister must try to find a balanced way of dealing with the matter. I can try to push for more, and that is my role. Sunbeds have been banned in a number of states in Australia - New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia - with the ban being phased in over the coming years. Sunbeds were also banned in 2009 in Brazil, where, to the best of my knowledge, there have been no successful claims that the ban is an undue interference with people's individual freedom.
An Australian study previously published in the Journal of Cancershowed that the risk of developing melanoma under the age of 30 increases by a factor of six for people who use sunbeds more than ten times. What really got to me was the finding that a single visit to a solarium could increase the risk of melanoma by 41%. A study of people diagnosed with early-onset melanoma shockingly recorded sunbed use in people as young as 14 years of age. I suppose the accepted logic in Australia, which has one of the highest skin cancer rates in the world, is that because 80% of all newly diagnosed cancers are skin cancers, and sunbeds are clearly linked to increased incidence of skin cancer, ipso facto, sunbeds will be banned in the interests of the common good. Unfortunately, the Bill before us does not do this, but I hope we soon arrive at a similar conclusion as people become more educated and informed, because preparing for this debate has been educational and informative for me. I will flag at this juncture that I will be coming back on Committee Stage with two amendments drawn up by the Irish Cancer Society and tabled in the Dáil by Deputies Billy Kelleher and Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin. The amendments seek to introduce an additional layer of protection for those over the age of 18 who are physiologically at greater risk of developing skin cancer from sunbed use. It is important to note skin types I and II on the Fitzpatrick scale are the most common skin types in Ireland. According to a medical study in 2010, in comparison with people with skin type IV - the fourth out of six skin types on the scale - people with skin type I are 2.27 times more likely to be at risk of malignant melanoma, while people with skin type II are at double the risk. In Australia, a number of states, including Victoria, while gearing towards an all-out ban, prohibit people with very fair skin - type I - from using a sunbed and require a skin assessment prior to use. The amendments I will table seek to prohibit those with skin types I and II from using sunbeds and will extend the capacity of the Bill to save more lives.
The enjoyment of personal freedoms and the right to engage in risky behaviour can be subject to limitation. For example, I will argue that the common good is proportionately served by dramatically reducing the number of people dying from or being treated for skin cancer in Ireland. In respect of the dissemination of prescribed information to people looking to use sunbeds, I note in the explanatory memorandum to the Bill that this measure aims "to promote a greater public awareness across all age groups of the dangers of developing skin cancer". I wonder whether it is too late for a person to receive the information when they are already in the solarium because they have already made the decision to use a sunbed. Surely we need to disseminate this information as part of a broad public health campaign, particularly in schools, with a view to de-normalising the use of sunbeds in the same way as the Minister is succeeding in de-normalising smoking. We need to look at other outlets such as magazines and bring together that information on sunbed use. Preparing for this debate has been hugely informative for me, so we should share this knowledge.